


(there is no sweeter innocence than) our gentle sin

by GallifreyanFairytale



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (bc what else do you have when you're a gay kid with homophobic parents?), (but make it the chloe moriondo cover), Angst, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Canonical Child Abuse, F/F, Found Family, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Gen, Hard of Hearing Zuko (Avatar), Homophobia, Hopeful Ending, Internalized Homophobia, LET THE FIRE NATION KIDS BE HAPPY!!!!, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Mai (Avatar), Lesbian Ty Lee (Avatar), M/M, Minor Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Minor Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, POV Alternating, Partially Blind Zuko (Avatar), Song: Take Me To Church (Hozier), Suicidal Thoughts, and let them get some therapy oh my god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanFairytale/pseuds/GallifreyanFairytale
Summary: i'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knifean exploration of the fire nation kids, internalized homophobia, and what it means to love, set to the tune of take me to church
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee & Zuko, Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 221





	(there is no sweeter innocence than) our gentle sin

**Author's Note:**

> if you watched the beach episode and took it as proof that all four fire nation kids are gay, thus turning the episode from a light-hearted depiction of the 'villains' being normal people to a depressing commentary on heteronormativity disguised as comedy, this fic is probably for you.
> 
> i truly have no defense for the fact that this ended up being over 25k words. i made it halfway through the song and realized i was at 12k already, but it was too late to turn back or section it into chapters at that point, so now you just get this entire thing in one chapter. and i once again have to deal with the fact that a one-shot based on a single fleeting thought has become my longest to date.
> 
> i took a few lyrics out bc i didn't feel like they fit the ~vibe~ the fic had going on at the moment which i'm really sad about but sometimes we must make sacrifices :/ also i actually mostly listened to [chloe moriondo's cover of take me to church](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRcdEB6uSsQ) while writing this, which i highly recommend listening to bc i am in love with her
> 
> TW: [internalized] homophobia, suicide & self-harm ideation/contemplation/general discussion, and (canon compliant) child abuse

_my lover’s got a humor_

_she’s the giggle at a funeral_

The only thing Ty Lee can do is squeeze her eyes shut and try to move her mind to a plane of existence where every sound isn’t being drowned out by Zuko’s screams of pain. Mai - never one for showing any emotion besides boredom - turns to Ty Lee and clings to her. Ty Lee hugs back just as hard, praying to Agni for this eternal moment to end. The crowd around them is cheering or mumbling, but still all Ty Lee can really hear is Zuko.

Mai is shaking, and maybe Ty Lee is too. She’s vaguely aware that tears are streaming down her cheeks because _Agni, what if this is it?_ Agni Kais are typically to the death, and Zuko won’t fight, and Mai never cries, but she’s sobbing into the crook of Ty Lee’s neck and the only thing Ty Lee can do is fist her hands into Mai’s robes and cry her own tears for the boy who might’ve been her friend, if they’d had the chance.

The screams stop, and Mai stiffens. Ty Lee shakes her head, and screws her eyes shut even tighter. She can’t look, can’t bear to see the lifeless, charred, body of a boy who hardly got to live before he died at the hands of his own father. It’s treasonous to speak against the Fire Lord, but Ty Lee can’t help the tangle of distasteful thoughts tumbling through her mind. She’s not one for negativity, but Zuko’s aura always had a soft golden tinge of kindness to it while Fire Lord Ozai’s is red with hatred.

Fire Lord Ozai speaks, voice low and angry, but Ty Lee’s ears are still ringing with the sound of Zuko’s screams and the realization that he must be dead now because there’s no other way for an Agni Kai to end. She’s still holding onto Mai like a lifeline, like if she lets go, she’ll lose Mai next. And in the reverberations of the tortured screams of an innocent boy, Mai’s sniffles are the only thing echoing through Ty Lee’s ears.

When Ty Lee finally does wrench her eyes open, she doesn’t look towards the arena where Fire Lord Ozai must be standing over the body of his dead son; she looks to Azula. Azula, with a malicious sneer on her face, smiling at Zuko’s pain in the same way she always does. Azula, lover of violence and fire and shooting enough sparks from her fingertips to light the world aflame on accident.

Azula, who three hours before the Agni Kai, was cupping Ty Lee’s face like she was about to fade away and confessing that she never wanted to kiss a boy, but she might like to try kissing Ty Lee. Azula, who Ty Lee had leaned in towards and kissed the best an eleven-year-old could. Azula, who broke the kiss, scorched the wall, and stormed away.

Azula, whose lips Ty Lee could _not_ forget the taste of. And it’s only been three hours, but Ty Lee knows the ghost of their barely-kiss will haunt her for the rest of her life, because she knows, she _knows_ , she is not supposed to be kissing girls and she’s definitely not supposed to be kissing the crown princess. But Azula catches Ty Lee’s eye from across the coliseum, and she looks sort of sad for only half a second, but it’s _enough_. 

Not even Azula is a good enough liar to pretend there wasn’t something flickering in that kiss that wasn’t supposed to be there.

And then a voice breaks through, dragging Ty Lee’s brain back into the reality she lives in and away from the kiss that can never be treated as real. _“Yes, sir.”_ It’s raspy and broken and quiet, but Ty Lee knows it belongs to Zuko.

She and Mai look down at the same time, seeing Zuko kneeling over, face pressed to the ground. Fire Lord Ozai stands over him like he’s disgusted to even be in the same room as Zuko. 

And then Zuko lifts his head, and Ty Lee has to look away again because his _face_.

“Agni,” Mai mutters and Ty Lee knows she's still looking, but Ty Lee will get sick if she looks back to the sight of Zuko’s half-melted face. Firebenders are supposed to be fireproof. Azula will stick her fingers through candle flames just because she can, will light a fire just to dance in it. But Zuko is kneeling before his father with half the skin on his face melted off.

Mai digs her fingers deeper into Ty Lee’s arm, and Ty Lee doesn’t even care if Mai’s nails pierce her skin because nothing, nothing, _nothing_ will ever come close to what Zuko has just been through. Suddenly every single injury Ty Lee has ever had - from the smallest papercut to the time she broke her wrist - seems impossibly miniscule. Ty Lee thinks that maybe, for the rest of her life, she’s going to compare every injury to this moment and she’s going to know that she will never know pain as deep as Zuko.

**knows everybody’s disapproval**

**i should’ve worshipped her sooner**

The day after the Agni Kai, Azula locks herself in her bedroom and stares at the family portrait hanging on her wall. She stares for hours, maybe, memorizing every drop of paint. And then she lights her hand on fire and shoves it against her mother’s face until the portrait has a gaping hole. She turns to Zuko next, watching the flames as they eat through her brother’s face for the second time in twenty-four hours and she knows that Zuko will be boarding his ship into banishment now, sent on a wild goose chase to find the Avatar, who might as well be a long lost legend at this point.

Azula extinguishes the flames and sinks to the ground, the portrait above her half gone just like her family. She’ll never tell anyone, but in the moment when her father’s fire made contact with Zuko’s face, everything in her body shut down except for the realization that Azula can still feel very, very, afraid.

She hates Zuko, and she knows her father hates him too, but Azula’s secret is that she thinks she might hate herself, and that’s where it all starts. Zuko hated his subpar firebending and when he hated himself, it made it so much easier for Azula to hate him too. So if Azula hates herself, maybe her father will follow her lead.

And yet, the next day, when Ty Lee comes bouncing into Azula’s bedroom, Azula forgets to hate herself just long enough to bring Ty Lee into her arms and kiss her better than the first time.

It’s wet and messy and Azula isn’t even sure how many people have their first kiss at eleven years old, but she is sure that she wants to kiss Ty Lee and Ty Lee seems to be sure that she wants to kiss Azula, and so they sit on Azula’s bed on top of silky red sheets and they kiss until the burning hatred bubbles back up inside Azula’s chest.

Azula’s lungs are on fire, melting like the left half of Zuko’s face under their father’s hand, searing with the pain of finally _knowing_ that while she’s all set to be Fire Lady one day, she’s going to be the end of the line. There are four of them left: Azula, Zuko, their father, and Uncle Iroh. Uncle Iroh will die before Azula and Zuko - if banishment or an infection of his wound don’t kill Zuko first - and with Zuko set up to fail and never be welcomed home, Azula is the only one left who can possibly take her father’s place after his death.

And Azula is kissing another girl in her bedroom, set alight by the realization that she will never feel this way about a boy. 

Azula reaches up and touches her hand to Ty Lee’s cheek, looking into her wide grey eyes. Zuko has manipulated heat before, but he’s never been able to explain how he does it. He’s looked Azula in the eye and shot a wave of pure _cold_ through her body. 

Right now, with Ty Lee’s eyes locked on Azula’s, Azula thinks _maybe_ she might get it. She thinks maybe you have to be able to really _feel_ before you can raise or lower someone’s body temperature with just a look. Their father refused to accept it as _real_ firebending, but Azula closes her eyes and the room warms, heat wrapping around her and Ty Lee just enough to create an invisible safety blanket. Just enough for it to be comforting.

But the point of contact between Azula’s hand and Ty Lee’s face is ice cold. Azula knows what a hot hand against soft flesh does.

**_if the heavens ever did speak_ **

**_she’s the last true mouthpiece_**

Mai is silent for seven days after Zuko leaves. She turns down Azula’s invitations to join her and Ty Lee at the palace. She barely sleeps, barely eats, and she knows she’s only twelve, but she thinks maybe this is what death is supposed to feel like. If it is, she wishes Agni would just take her already.

Mai doesn’t know if she’s in love with Zuko or if she just liked the idea of him, but she also supposes that it really doesn’t matter anymore, because he’s never coming back. The Avatar hasn’t been seen in a hundred years. 

Before he left, Zuko promised her he would come back. His wound had been bandaged, and he’d already shaved his head according to custom by the time Mai ran to meet him on the docks. She’d thrown her arms around him, trying to memorize what it felt like to hug him because this was the last chance she was ever going to get. _“I’ll come back,”_ Zuko had whispered into her hair, and Mai had pretended to believe him.

The more Mai dwells on Zuko, the less in love with him she feels. She thinks maybe she’d let Azula trick her into thinking she liked Zuko, or maybe Mai just doesn’t know the difference between a friend and a crush. She knows she loves Zuko in some way, knows it must have been love pulling the sobs out of her throat as Zuko’s screams shook the entire coliseum. She knows it must have been love that had her screaming as soon as she got home, neglecting the strict training she’d adhered to her entire life of never speaking up or speaking out or feeling anything at all.

And it must be love, too, that brings Mai from her bedroom when Ty Lee stops on her doorstep eight days after Zuko’s departure. It must be love that has Mai throwing herself into Ty Lee’s arms because it’s been eight days since she hugged Zuko on the docks and she hasn’t let herself touch anyone since then and she desperately needs someone who isn’t trying to convince her everything will be okay in the same empty way her parents have been.

She and Ty Lee hide in her bedroom, laying on Mai’s bed. Ty Lee is on her back, looking up at the ceiling, while Mai lays on her side so she can look at Ty Lee. She loves Ty Lee and Zuko both, and she thinks she loves them in different ways, but she isn’t entirely sure what that means.

Ty Lee and Zuko are two very different people, and Mai has known Ty Lee years longer than she’s known Zuko, so of course she loves them differently, but she wonders if maybe one of the types of love is something other than friendship, and she wonders if maybe it’s the wrong one.

Because Zuko is nice, and Mai thinks everyone _wants_ her to have a crush on him, so she’d let herself play the part of a girl who has a crush on the crown prince simply because it’s what everyone expects. But Zuko will _never_ be Ty Lee. He will never be as pretty and soft and lovely as Ty Lee is, and Mai will never tell anyone that she wonders what it would be like to kiss Ty Lee, but she’s never wanted to kiss Zuko so intensely. She’s wondered about it in passing, but always shrunk away from the thought. With Ty Lee, however, Mai thinks how nice it would be to feel the other girl’s soft lips against hers.

It’s not something Mai should be feeling, she knows this. But she isn’t sure this is something she can help either. Maybe if she’s lucky, over time, she’ll find herself falling in love with a boy, but for right now, she watches Ty Lee talk about her sisters and her favorite stories and anything other than the memory of Zuko that might forever weigh them both down.

every sunday’s getting more bleak

fresh poison each week

Zuko flinches away from flames now, as if he wasn’t enough of a disappointment to begin with.

It’s only one discovery in a long line of realizations Zuko has had since he was banished three weeks prior. One: Zuko much prefers reading to training, and now that there’s no one to stop him, Zuko will spend hours on end researching previous Avatars and never once practicing a single firebending form, and he will enjoy it. Two: Zuko can’t hear out of his left ear anymore. Three: Zuko can’t see out of his left eye anymore. Four: Zuko flinches away from fire.

A firebender, scared of fire. Zuko can only imagine what his father would say if he were here. Uncle assures him it’s okay and reasonable to be afraid, but Zuko knows better than that. How can a firebender be afraid of fire? How can a firebender be afraid of his one line of defense?

This is what brings Zuko back to his Dao blades. He knows how to wield them _sort of_ , but he’s out of practice as his father decided swords weren’t a fitting weapon for someone who is an “almost competent firebender”. So Zuko trains with swords instead of fire, like the coward he is, and he tries to remember what he’s working towards on his hunt for the Avatar: _Home_.

Mai came to see him off, and he promised her he would return, and he intends to make good on that promise. He and Mai are supposed to have some sort of something between the two of them, like it’s their Fire Nation-selected destiny to be together. Zuko is supposed to become Fire Lord and Mai is supposed to become his Fire Lady, or at least that’s what Zuko thinks he might believe.

Something about that vision of the future seems wrong in Zuko’s mind, but he can’t place a finger on what part, exactly, sends discomfort rippling through his veins. He tries not to think too hard about it, because it’s just the life Agni set out for him, isn’t it? He doesn’t really have a choice. If Zuko’s father hadn’t become Fire Lord after his grandfather died, maybe fate would have shifted Zuko away from the destiny he knows he’s supposed to fulfill and into something… _happier_ , but--

The thought floors Zuko. He’s supposed to become Fire Lord. How is that not _happy_?

Is there something else Zuko would prefer?

No, the only life he’s ever known has been lived out in the Fire Nation palace, how could he long for anything else? He can’t even think of any other option that would make him as happy as being welcomed home with his honor restored and running into Mai’s arms and telling her, _“I told you so!”_ and everything going back to how it was before.

So why does he still feel some sort of ache deep in his bones for a life he’ll never be able to have? Why is his heart yearning for something slightly different than the future Zuko sees laid out in front of him? What is so bad about becoming Fire Lord and marrying Mai? Zuko doesn’t understand the way his blood seems to shift at the thought, nor the way his heart hits a beat _wrong_ , like it’s sad and crying out for something else, something off limits, something so forbidden Zuko can’t even bring it to mind.

_we were born sick_

_you heard them say it_

Three years after Zuko’s banishment, Ty Lee finds herself teaming up with Mai and Azula to take over the world (or something to that effect), and as soon as she sees Mai, she throws her arms around the taller girl. Mai has never been one for hugs, but she hugs Ty Lee back and for a moment, Ty Lee lets herself imagine it’s just the two of them. 

When she was eleven and just realizing that maybe she liked girls, Ty Lee thought she must be in love with Azula. But her crush on the princess couldn’t hold a candle to the way she feels in Mai’s arms right now. 

She’d realized it just before she left to join the circus. Because yes, the circus had been her dream since basically forever, but as she and Mai spent one last night together and looked up at the stars, Ty Lee realized her dream included Mai running away with her. Her dream including leaning over and kissing Mai until they couldn’t breathe and begging her to come with and Mai nodding and smiling and saying she would go anywhere with Ty Lee and--

Azula clears her throat, and Ty Lee disentangles herself from Mai. They have a job to do, and Ty Lee isn’t in the circus anymore where they might shoot her an odd look but ultimately not care if she walked around hand-in-hand with Mai. They’re with Azula, and the entire Fire Nation is depending on the three of them, so Ty Lee can’t let her feelings get in the way.

That night, after Azula falls asleep, Ty Lee is still awake and staring at the stars. She knows Mai is probably asleep too, only a few yards away from where Ty Lee is laying. She knows she can spend the rest of her life wondering what it would be like to be able to love Mai, but Ty Lee guesses maybe she’s just unlucky. She’s never quite felt the same way about any boys as she has about Mai or even Azula. She’s seen her sisters swoon over boys, but Ty Lee has never understood it. She’s always just silently agreed with whatever they say.

And it’s unfortunate, but Ty Lee will be okay. She doesn’t need a significant other to be happy. She has Mai and Azula, and she has the circus to go back to when this is all over. She can be happy with whatever love she can pull before it’s too much and too risky and she’s hovering around breaking the law, but not quite there. She can hug Mai for a few moments too long and she can stare at the stars, remembering the feel of Azula’s lips against hers and she can daydream about a world where she’s allowed to love whoever she wants.

A long time ago, before the Agni Kai that sent Zuko away, before Ty Lee fled to the circus, before the Avatar returned to the world, before Ty Lee was handed a role in the war that should have been for someone far older and more experienced than her, Ty Lee had heard speculations about Zuko. It had started with people wondering if Mai would one day be Fire Lady after somehow (likely through Azula), word got out that Mai and Zuko liked each other. Zuko had vehemently denied it and said he just liked Mai like a friend, and despite the fact that he’d only been twelve at the time, that had been the exact wrong response.

Apparently, a lot of people thought boys and girls couldn’t be _just friends_ unless something was wrong, unless Zuko was born with a brain that had been twisted and corrupted and so very sick beyond all hope, unless Zuko was born as someone who just didn’t like girls at all. It was a rash conclusion to jump to, but Zuko had quietly rescinded his statement and Ty Lee could tell he’d tried very hard to have a crush on Mai up until his banishment.

Even once the rumors and speculation eased up, the damage had been done. Ty Lee had heard all of the terrible things people said about Zuko and she sat quietly, knowing that really, they could be saying those exact same things about her or Azula. They _should_ be saying those exact same things about her or Azula, because all Zuko had done was not have a crush on _one_ girl, but Ty Lee and Azula had actually kissed each other and Ty Lee couldn’t even bring herself to feel bad about it.

**we were born sick**

It hits Azula as she’s wiping Kyoshi Warrior makeup off her face: Zuko has to come home.

Their father doesn’t want Zuko to be Fire Lord, and Azula understands that full well. But she has a strange feeling Zuko doesn’t want Zuko to be Fire Lord either, which means they can pull the exact same plot their father pulled on Azulon. (Okay, not the _exact_ same, because their father will not be dying at Azula’s hand; he’ll agree to the plan.) Their father will name Azula as his successor, and Zuko will agree to it because Azula will figure out a deal he can’t turn down, and then Zuko will marry Mai and start a family, and the royal line will not die with Azula.

_Zuko has to come home_.

It fills Azula’s chest with something fizzy, like maybe it isn’t too late for them to have some semblance of a sibling relationship not rooted in competition and hatred. Like maybe she could convince Zuko to spend the rest of his life feeding the turtleducks with Mai in exchange for Azula not subjecting herself to marrying a man.

Azula wipes the white paint from her cheeks and wonders if Avatar Kyoshi is watching the three of them in burning fury. Azula wouldn’t even blame her, but if the Kyoshi Warriors didn’t want anyone impersonating them, they shouldn’t paint their faces so they’re all indistinguishable from one another. It wasn’t _Azula’s_ fault they had the perfect disguise and just so happened to be aligned with the Avatar. Personally, Azula thinks they were practically _begging_ for trouble.

Azula knows bringing Zuko home is risky, but if she can take out the Avatar and pin the victory on Zuko, Father won’t have a choice on whether or not to accept Zuko’s return. _Kill the Avatar to save your future_. Huh, Azula is almost turning into her brother.

Except _she_ is not going to fail. Forget her father’s pathetic _capture_ order; Azula will take the Avatar out for good. The Avatar will be reborn, sure, but an infant can’t do anything to stop a comet, and they can use the comet's power to attack the water tribes just as Sozin used the comet to attack the Air Nomads.

Azula will kill the Avatar, Zuko will get the credit, and they will bide their time while their father is still Fire Lord until they can both get the future they want: Azula on the throne and Zuko studying literature.

**_but i love it_ **

Ty Lee brushes the cloth across Mai’s eyelids, and Mai nearly shatters under her gentle movements. The fingers on Ty Lee’s free hand come up to her jaw, holding Mai’s face in place so Ty Lee can continue and Mai forgets how to breathe. 

“You’re so tense,” Ty Lee murmurs, and Mai isn’t even sure she’s supposed to hear it until Ty Lee adds, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Mai whispers, because how can she tell Ty Lee she wants nothing more than to close the distance between them even if only for a split second, just so she can know what it feels like to kiss the girl across from her? How can she tell Ty Lee that sitting this close to her, breathing the same air, close enough to feel her breath, is lighting every nerve in Mai’s body on fire? How is she supposed to tell Ty Lee that the only love she can feel is the kind that will get her thrown in jail or killed, and despite that, she selfishly wants to take Ty Lee down with her?

Ty Lee smiles softly. “That’s okay.” She tilts Mai’s face down slightly, and their eyes are meeting. “You’re really pretty,” she tells Mai, who is wearing half a melted face of makeup. Mai, whose hair is definitely coming undone. Mai, who barely even knows how to smile.

Mai, who lets herself tell Ty Lee, “Not as pretty as you.”

Ty Lee giggles quietly. She brings the cloth to Mai’s lips and wipes the red off in one swipe, and then Ty Lee is leaning in closer until Mai can almost taste her. “Can I--?”

“Please,” Mai breathes, and then Ty Lee’s lips are on hers. Ty Lee drops the cloth and digs her fingers into Mai’s robes. Mai finds herself holding onto Ty Lee’s arms and leaning forward, leaning into Ty Lee. And she knows that this, what she’s feeling right now, is nothing like what she ever felt for Zuko. She wanted to hug Zuko and be there for him when he needed a friend. But Mai wants to live in this moment forever, drink Ty Lee’s essence in until they’re one and the same and spend the rest of her life curled up in Ty Lee, Ty Lee, _Ty Lee_. She wants to run her fingers through Ty Lee’s hair and kiss every inch of her body and memorize every freckle until she could trace them out in the dark.

And this is wrong, Mai knows that. She knows she should be appalled at herself, but how _can_ she be when everything about this moment feels more _right_ than anything else in Mai’s life? She knows this is wrong, yes, but the only thing Mai is certain about is that she loves Ty Lee in a way she’s never loved anyone else and in a way that will end both their lives if they’re not careful.

When they break apart, breathless, Ty Lee’s eyes are the darkest shade of grey Mai has ever seen them, and she’s looking at Mai with such an intense expression Mai feels like she might unravel from the gaze alone. Like Ty Lee is picking her apart, and Mai isn’t going to stop it because she’s already decided Ty Lee is worth dying for.

And then Ty Lee’s lips are back on Mai’s, and Mai is tumbling backwards until she’s lying on her back and Ty Lee is hovering over her and Mai vaguely registers that she’s still got half her makeup on, but mostly all she can think is _Ty Lee_.

command me to be well

Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord, and he’s not sure he even wants to go back to the Fire Nation. He doesn’t want to marry Mai - or any girl for that matter - and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life tiptoeing around his father and Azula in order to avoid any wrong movement that will put him right back at square one.

But he made a promise three long years ago to the only friend he’s ever had that he would come back home, and his hair is short and his dreams have changed, but he owes it to Mai to make good on his promise. He wonders if maybe Mai still loves him, and if he’s going to need to fall back into whatever pretense he’d put on before his banishment. 

Uncle pleads with Zuko to not give into Azula’s offer, but Zuko can’t even hear him. All he can hear is his raspy voice at age thirteen promising Mai he would come back home and the last look Mai gave him, silently saying she didn’t really think that was true. Mai is the _only_ friend Zuko has ever had, and Mai was in some sort of love with him back then and maybe they could be in some sort of love again.

The harsh kisses of a boy on the ferry to Ba Sing Se send doubts ringing through Zuko’s mind, but he shakes them away. That was a fluke, a phase. That can’t be who Zuko is - it’s _wrong_. Hidden kisses in the midst of banishment and fleeing as refugees is one thing, but Zuko is being welcomed home with honor and all he has to do is fight beside his sister.

Azula wants to be Fire Lord anyways, so maybe Zuko can have it all. Maybe Zuko can agree to hand the throne over to Azula and then he won’t be looked at with the expectation of providing an heir and carrying on the royal bloodline. And if Zuko goes down in history as a prince with no significant other but a “very close male friend”, then that’s Zuko’s business and his alone. Maybe Zuko _can_ have it all - his home, his honor, and a way to one-up destiny and weasel his way out of being stuck as Fire Lord.

Maybe if Zuko can forget about Jet kissing him senseless and Katara looking at him like he was worth saving and Aang asking him if they could ever be friends and Uncle begging Zuko to not listen to Azula for just a few seconds, maybe if Zuko can forget about the months he spent serving tea as Lee, maybe if he can forget confessing to Jin that he’s pretty sure he only likes boys and her smiling at him and telling him that’s okay and they could still be friends, maybe, maybe, _maybe_ …

Maybe there’s another world in which Zuko doesn’t side with Azula, and Zuko wishes that alternate version of himself the best, but he has a friend to reunite with and a promise to fulfill.

_take me to church_

_i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_

“I told you I’d come back,” is the first thing Zuko says upon seeing Mai and Ty Lee. Ty Lee watches as Mai flings her arms around Zuko and she feels her heart sink, crushed under the weight of knowing she is too much of a risk for Mai to even consider choosing her over Zuko. Ty Lee will be left alone with the memory of another girl’s lips on her own yet again, haunted by the knowledge that nothing in the world is right but everyone is pretending anyways. Because Ty Lee will forever know that Azula and Mai both kissed her in the dark, and it didn’t mean _nothing_ \- it’s just too risky to let it happen again.

Ty Lee will always know that the way Mai looked at her in Ba Sing Se was worlds away from the way she looks at Zuko, but no one else saw the flurry of emotions flickering through Mai’s eyes after Ty Lee broke their kiss and just held her for as long as they dared hide away under the pretense that they were getting ready for bed. No one else knows that Mai is smiling at Zuko like a friend and she smiles at Ty Lee like maybe they could be in love if the world wasn’t set up against them from the day they were born.

Zuko waves at Ty Lee once Mai pulls back from him, and Ty Lee returns the wave in the same respectful manner. Mai looks between them, and Azula looks like she’s calculating their every movement in order to play them all to her perfect plan. Ty Lee wonders if Zuko coming back is part of that plan - if she’s going to use him like a pawn. It’s almost the only thing that makes sense, given the fact that Azula’s maniacal grin at the Agni Kai is still seared into Ty Lee’s mind.

Azula leads them through the palace, and Mai walks in between Zuko and Ty Lee. Mai’s hand catches against Ty Lee’s and Ty Lee looks over at her. Mai glances down at their hands, shakes her head, and Ty Lee understands. They’re back in the Fire Nation, standing side-by-side with not only Azula but Zuko as well. They’re not in Ba Sing Se dressed up in outfits that erase their identities, they can’t be anyone besides themselves, and they cannot be in love, or in whatever it was they had. 

Ty Lee smiles sadly. She gets it; she knew this would happen. Their secret mission wouldn’t last forever, and now that Zuko is home, Mai will turn back to him. Ty Lee is always only a temporary, and she _knows_ , but when Mai looks away from her and takes Zuko’s hand instead, Ty Lee still feels everything inside of her shrivel up and die like Earth Kingdom flowers in the winter.

**i’ll tell you my sins**

“What would it take,” Azula asks, leaning against the wall in Zuko’s bedroom, “for you to agree to let me inherit the position of Fire Lord?”

Zuko looks up from his book. Azula feels her body temperature drop half a degree as Zuko’s face flickers through confusion, hope, distrust, and finally annoyance. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Azula crosses the room and sits herself down across from her brother. “I want to be Fire Lord, Zuzu, and you don’t. This isn’t that difficult; it’s how it’s always been.”

Zuko places a bookmark in his book before closing it and setting it down next to him. “You want to be Fire Lord,” he repeats carefully. He’s gotten better at disguising his emotions while he was away, but Azula can still see him formulating a plan. He has something he wants, and Azula will draw it out of him eventually. He can’t hide forever, and he knows it. Azula has a way of figuring things out. 

Zuko leans forward and Azula’s body temperature drops again, not enough to do any damage, but enough to send a shiver down her spine. “Why should I give up my birthright to you? I only restored my honor four days ago.”

“We both know _you_ didn’t do anything.”

“And yet, you’re offering me anything I want in exchange for the role of Fire Lord after Father is gone.” Zuko picks his book back up and resumes reading. “You can have it if I don’t have to marry anyone.”

It’s Azula’s turn to play with heat, unintentionally raising the temperature of the room until they might as well be standing under the noon sun on the hottest day of the year. Zuko raises his eyebrow, but it’s only a vague sense of surprise, like he’s not really shocked, but he thinks Azula wants him to be. “I’m not asking for much.”

It’s a lie, but how can Azula say that? Her only reason for bringing Zuko home was to throw him into the role of creating an heir, and he can’t do that if he doesn’t get married. One of them has to carry on the royal bloodline, and it sure as hell _isn’t_ going to be Azula.

“What about Mai?”

“I--” Zuko stops himself. Azula is positive he was going to pull the, _“I don’t have a crush on her,”_ line back out, but he knows what happened last time he tried that. Everyone thought Zuko was a disappointment in the same way Azula is. “I’m not sure…” Zuko tries again, but there are no words he can string into a sentence that won’t give Azula the perfect opportunity to say _“Oh, I see,”_ in a way that lets Zuko know she believes the rumors that are still circulating about his lack of interest in women, even if Azula doesn’t believe them because she _can’t_.

Because they can’t _both_ be cursed; it’s very nearly statistically impossible. Her affliction is one in every thousand, maybe, and she knows Ty Lee is suffering too, which means Zuko and Mai are fine and Azula can shove them together in order to keep herself safe. 

“Why wouldn’t you want to marry anyone, Zuzu?” Azula sneers anyways, like she doesn’t know full well the only one of them who is a disgrace here is her. It’s the one thing Zuko has over her: he was lucky enough to be born straight. Azula might have been born lucky, but the only reason their father even said that was because he didn’t know Azula was born with an incurable illness.

“I don’t know,” Zuko tells her, almost like it’s a confession that the rumors are true. If Azula were anyone else - if Azula didn’t know what she knew - she would take it as exactly that, and she’d use it as bait over Zuko. But Azula can’t even believe that Zuko’s admission of falling in the law-breaking sort of love is true because that ruins everything Azula has meticulously planned out.

So she just leaves. She has nothing left to bargain with in this moment, so she will draw back and wait for the perfect moment to strike. Zuko will slip up in some other way eventually - he always does - and Azula will swoop in and make Zuko a deal he can’t turn down, and they’ll both forget that Zuko agreed to give up everything he is owed in life just so he wouldn’t have to marry anyone.

**_and you can sharpen your knife_ **

“I’m not in love with you,” Zuko tells Mai bluntly, and Mai doesn’t even look up.

“I’m not in love with you either,” she admits. What she doesn’t say is that she thinks she might be in love with _someone_ who she had to let slip through her fingers because they can never be together. And maybe if Ty Lee runs back to the circus someday, she can hide well enough that she can find someone who can stand by her side forever, but Mai will always be stuck playing the role of a girl who is supposed to end up with Zuko or some other boy her parents hand pick. She’s supposed to be the trophy wife of someone with a meaningless title and live the rest of her days caring for their children.

Zuko looks around them despite the fact that they’re on the roof and they triple checked that no one followed them up here. The air around them cools sharply and Zuko lowers his voice. “I don’t like girls,” he confesses, the breeze swiping his words away as soon as they fall from his lips, but they still strike straight into Mai’s heart because she’s pretty sure this should be statistically impossible. What are the chances that of the four of them, Azula is the only one who can love correctly?

“I only like girls,” Mai responds. She pulls a knife from her sleeve and studies the blade as Zuko processes what she’s told him; that they’re both disappointments in the worst way possible. Mai could have turned on Azula in Ba Sing Se to join the Avatar and liking girls would still be the most unforgivable thing she’s done. How interesting that the worst thing Mai has ever done is simply exist in the way she was born.

How heinous that of Mai’s three friends, two of them will have to spend the rest of their lives hiding such an intricate part of themselves that they will never be able to fully _be_ themselves.

The air warms once more and Zuko says, “What are we supposed to do?”

_What are we supposed to do?_ Mai wishes there were any answer that didn’t make her stomach fold in on itself and send pinpricks down her back. Mai wishes there were any answer at all. Instead, she presses her finger against the blade of her knife almost hard enough to draw blood, but not quite. Instead, she presses her lips together and shakes her head, because what _can_ they do? There are no answers, no options, no _life_ for people like them anywhere in the Fire Nation, much less the crown prince and the girl everyone wants him to marry.

offer me that deathless death

It’s Mai’s idea, to fake a relationship, and Zuko knows that this is the best option he can hope for. They can protect each other from suspicions and rumors and Azula, who Zuko might as well have outright told his predicament to. And yet, she hadn’t threatened to tell Father if Zuko didn’t agree that she could be Fire Lord; she just stormed off in her stewing, scheming, way.

So he and Mai can pretend to be in love with each other, and since neither of them can love in a way that doesn’t set them up for destruction, they can be content with pretending forever. And Azula can take the throne and continue the royal bloodline, because Zuko really _doesn’t_ want to be Fire Lord and if he and Mai end up married, it’ll be for show and nothing else.

Zuko spends most of his time with Mai, because he’s pretty sure that’s what he’s supposed to do. Mai goes along with it, only occasionally inviting Ty Lee to join them, and really, Zuko doesn’t mind Ty Lee. She’s a little bubbly, but Mai seems to prefer her to Zuko, which gives Zuko a break from pretending he and Mai could ever be in the type of love everyone thinks they are.

It’s not a bad life by any means, but there’s still something eating away at Zuko’s soul. Some voice in the back of his brain that sounds like a cross between Uncle’s untranslatable proverbs and Aang’s hopeful query about them being friends and Katara telling him about her magic water. There’s still some part of him that longs for the boy he met on a boat, because despite the fact that he and Jet were terrible for each other, at least Zuko could feel _something_ with him. Something besides dread every time he has to lean in and kiss Mai, something besides his gut sinking at the thought of being tied forever to someone he isn’t even in love with.

He would do anything for Mai - give his life, marry her in front of the entire Fire Nation - but she isn't enough to pull his thoughts away from flights of fancy where he falls in love with a boy and doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life faking. And when Mai wakes from a nap with Ty Lee’s name on her lips, Zuko thinks she might understand. Zuko thinks Mai holding onto him might be tearing her away from a chance at real love, so he doesn’t tell Mai that he has to leave.

He just goes.

_good god, let me give you my life_

“I would have gone with him, if he’d asked,” Mai whispers into the dark between her and Ty Lee. Ty Lee’s breath catches in her throat, and she’s not sure if it’s jealousy or longing or love that sets her heart stuttering, but it doesn’t even matter because even though Zuko is gone, Mai still won’t choose Ty Lee. Mai won’t risk it, and Ty Lee can’t even blame her. “I think--” Mai stops herself and Ty Lee hears her move.

The curtains open and moonlight drips into the room, coloring everything vaguely silver shades of navy blue and burgundy, and Mai all but glows in the light of the half moon and twinkling stars. She stares across the room at Ty Lee, like there’s a thousand things she wants to say but can’t, and Ty Lee nods. They can’t say anything - Mai shouldn’t even be confessing she would’ve run away with Zuko, because Ty Lee could turn her in for treason even though she would never in a million years do anything to put Mai in danger. 

(Apart from kissing her in Ba Sing Se until they were both breathless and Ty Lee couldn’t remember any life besides one where Mai was in her arms and Mai was wrapped around her and Mai was the only thing Ty Lee could see, hear, smell, feel, think, _Mai_.)

“We might be on the wrong side of history,” Ty Lee finishes for Mai, because it’s the vaguest way she can say what they’re clearly both thinking: _The Fire Nation is evil, and the Avatar needs to defeat Fire Lord Ozai_. Zuko is going to be on the right side of history - a Fire Nation defector, joining the ranks of the Avatar and his masters, same as in all the old stories. Zuko will become a story, a legend, a character in the tale of Avatar Aang and how he ended the 100 Year War, and Mai and Ty Lee will be forgotten, nameless, faceless, lovers who couldn’t be together. Mai and Ty Lee will be known and remembered by no one unless they’re caught, in which case, they’ll be listed as criminals with their names next to thousands of others who were caught in their hopeless loves too.

Mai paces across the room and sits down next to Ty Lee. She takes Ty Lee’s hand in hers. “I want the Avatar to win.” Her voice is quiet but decisive, and Ty Lee feels the statement echo through her bones _I want the Avatar to win_. They’ll be criminals either way then, Ty Lee supposes, so maybe they can flee back to Ba Sing Se and take on new identities and maybe - just maybe - Ty Lee can feel what it’s like to kiss Mai just one more time.

But for now, she squeezes Mai’s hand and whispers, “Me too.”

**take me to church**

**i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies**

Rage overtakes Azula’s body before she’s even aware of what is happening. The temperature is rising, rising, and Azula can feel lightning crackling through her veins and sparks playing at her fingertips. 

She was so close to having the entire board set up perfectly - Zuko and Mai were together, Ty Lee was still in the palace, Zuko had admitted he really didn’t want to be Fire Lord and would be willing to make a deal with Azula that would be a win for them both, and Azula had everything set. The comet was on its way and the Fire Nation would be victorious and Azula would never have to worry about being the one to provide an heir.

And then Zuko had overturned the entire world by running away in the middle of the eclipse and telling their father to his face that he was going to join the Avatar. There’s no possible way for Azula to talk Zuko out of this one, no way for her to bring him back to the Fire Nation and force him to marry Mai so they can have a little prince or princess and Azula doesn’t have to worry about who could possibly be Fire Lord after her, because she’s the only one left.

_The only one left_.

And Azula is blasting fire or lightning at the wall - she isn’t sure which - and she’s screaming because how could she have possibly come _so close_ to perfecting everything only for Zuko to defect at the last minute and burn the world down around her in the process.

Azula drops to the ground and everything is hot and sticky and smoky, but all she can think is that maybe this is her fault, because she can’t fall in love with a boy like she’s supposed to, because she’s always been the perfect daughter in every way except the one that really matters. Zuko might have betrayed the Fire Nation, but it’s Azula’s fault because she thought she could use him to hide her own ignominies. 

Azula might be crying, or she might not be, but it doesn’t matter either way. She’s the only one left, she’s set to inherit the throne and the nation is set to be victorious, but Azula has _failed_.

She looks down at her hands and wonders what it would feel like to light one on fire and press it to her face, same as her father did to Zuko so long ago. She wonders what it would feel like to be on fire, to burn like the rest of the world, wonders what it would be like to be reminded of your greatest failure every time you look in the mirror. She wonders if maybe, she was the one who really deserved to kneel across from her father as he lowered his hand over her eye, if Zuko would have smiled like she did had the circumstances been reversed.

A flame licks across Azula’s palm and she knows she could do it. She could dig her nails into her cheek and let the flame melt her skin until her face looks exactly like Zuko’s, until she wears her shame in the form of a burn scar exactly like her brother.

She won’t do it, but she could. She _could_.

**_i’ll tell you my sins_ **

**_you can sharpen your knife_ **

They’re standing across from each other in the highest security prison in the world, and the only thing Mai can think is _I would have run away with you_. To his credit, Zuko looks guilty, like maybe he regrets leaving with just a note instead of admitting he can’t pretend for the rest of his life to Mai’s face. Like maybe he realizes Mai would’ve gone with him without either of them outright saying it.

“How’s Ty Lee?” Zuko asks instead of saying anything of any sustenance. Because they can’t say what they mean, can’t admit that the war needs to end and the Avatar needs to win, can’t do anything except offer words with hidden meanings they can only hope the other understands. “I know you two are close.”

And _oh_ , Mai suddenly understands what Zuko is trying to say. He’s trying to say he _knows_ and Mai thinks maybe he’s trying to say he didn’t tell Mai because he didn’t want to tear them apart and Mai wants to scream that as much as she loves Ty Lee, she probably would’ve picked running away with Zuko over her anyways because it’s the right thing to do and because she still feels some sense of duty to protect Zuko, like he’s still a prince or her boyfriend or whatever. But Mai would’ve felt torn about leaving Ty Lee, so Zuko didn’t give her a choice.

“She misses you,” Mai says carefully instead of saying _she would’ve come too_ and _we all could’ve left Azula behind and joined the Avatar together because we know the war is wrong now and we’re all wrong in the way we love anyways_.

Zuko nods. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you going to…” _be able to escape?_ “be okay?” Mai raises her eyebrows and glances towards the door, where she knows there are several guards positioned, likely listening to every word they’re saying. “I’ll help any way I can.”

Zuko knows what she means; Mai can see it in his eyes. He knows she’s just pledged allegiance to him above the Fire Nation, and therefore pledged her allegiance to the Avatar. She’s just told Zuko she will help him escape, and Mai is okay if it means she has to die, because she isn’t nearly as important as the Avatar’s firebending master. If she dies so the Avatar can end the war, she will be okay with it. She only hopes Ty Lee can forgive her if it comes to that.

“I still love you,” she tells him, because everyone in the Fire Nation knows that Mai is the poor, heartbroken, girl Prince Zuko left behind when he committed high treason. “I wish it didn’t have to end like this.” An outright lie, to throw the eavesdropping guards offbeat. “We could have had it all, but--” _I know why you had to leave, and I’m only mad you didn’t bring me with_ “--it’s okay. Agni had different destinies for us than we thought.”

And it’s true - Agni set them on a different path than Mai had expected, because Zuko is teaching the Avatar firebending and Mai is agreeing to die for a cause she’s been taught her whole life to oppose, but Mai thinks Agni knows this war is wrong same as Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee do. So when Zuko nods once, showing he understands what Mai is telling him, Mai smiles. She’s going to go down in history as a criminal either way, so she might as well try to do some good while she’s at it.

offer me that deathless death

good god, let me give you my life

Zuko watches as guards drag Mai and Ty Lee away, praying to Agni that they’ll be locked up instead of killed. Their families have a high enough status that execution isn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a possibility. Zuko knows Azula is malicious, and he doesn’t know if she will extend mercy to Mai and Ty Lee despite the fact that they’ve been friends for nearly a decade now.

Sokka has to drag Zuko off the gondola, but Zuko barely registers the fact that Sokka has wrapped his fingers around Zuko’s arm until they stop moving and Sokka hisses, “Dude, why is your arm so cold? Aren’t firebenders supposed to be hot?”

Only then does Zuko realize that Sokka’s hand is warm and the air around them is far too cold considering they’re standing on a volcano. Zuko breathes out, and the temperature in both the air and his body return to normal. Sokka doesn’t let go.

“Azula,” Zuko tells him, because that’s the only word he can get from his brain to his mouth. He knows Sokka doesn’t understand, but Zuko can’t _think_ because he knows he has something to say about Azula, but the look of fear on Mai and Ty Lee’s faces is pushing every other thought out of his brain, because does he owe it to them to go back? Does he owe it to them to save them?

He knows Mai all but told him she would die to get him out, she would give her life to make sure Aang wins, but that doesn’t stop the grief flooding into Zuko’s chest at the thought of losing Mai. At the thought of Mai and Ty Lee dying at the hands of his sister and their friend before they ever got the chance to even _try_ living lives where they could be true to themselves. He thinks he might get sick at the thought until Sokka grabs his other arm and looks Zuko in the eye.

“Hey,” he says softly. He reaches up and fixes Zuko’s hair. “What _about_ Azula?”

_Right, Azula_. “She…” Zuko searches his brain for words that make sense to at least sort of convey what he wants to say. “She came here. Somehow.”

It’s pitiful, but it’s enough because Sokka nods. “You’re right. That’s our way back; we can steal Azula’s ride.” He squeezes Zuko’s arm. “You’re worried about the girls, aren’t you?”

“Mai and Ty Lee,” Zuko’s mouth helpfully supplies instead of actually answering Sokka’s question, because apparently it’s more important for Sokka to know their names than know that his guess is right and Zuko is terrified thinking about what’s happening to them right now. They were his only friends before he joined Team Avatar, and to think that they might have just given up _everything_ because Zuko and his new friends needed help…

“They’ll be okay,” Sokka tells him. He surges forward and pulls Zuko into a hug, and they _really_ don’t have time to be hugging right now, but Zuko melts into the touch. He feels a painful twist in his gut, and he _knows_ that this is the same thing he felt with Jet, except it’s somehow softer and stronger all at once. Zuko knows this feeling is everything wrong and twisted inside of him, but he also knows that he wants to stay in Sokka’s arms forever and that _shouldn’t_ mean condemnation.

_if i’m a pagan of the good times_

_my lover’s the sunlight_

They’re on the hard floor of a prison cell with Mai seated behind Ty Lee, carefully unbraiding Ty Lee’s hair. Ty Lee can hardly feel Mai’s movements, but this moment still feels heavy and like a promise of some sort. It’s not the first time Mai has unbraided Ty Lee’s hair for her, but it’s the first time since they returned to the Fire Nation. Because in Ba Sing Se, it didn’t matter. In Ba Sing Se, they were Kyoshi Warriors who helped each other with hair and makeup all the time. But here, in this cell, they are Mai and Ty Lee, children of the Fire Nation who defected for a banished prince. Here, they are Mai and Ty Lee, two girls who might be in love, and if they’re in prison anyways, maybe they could finally say it.

When Mai finishes, she brushes Ty Lee’s hair over one shoulder and pulls Ty Lee against her. She drops a kiss onto the shoulder not covered by her thick, brown, hair and murmurs something Ty Lee doesn’t catch, but Ty Lee thinks she probably wasn’t meant to hear it. 

Ty Lee twists around so she can look at Mai, her eyes dark and sad. Every word Ty Lee was ready to say dies on her tongue, because what words could possibly be said for everything that’s happened between them? What words could possibly be enough for the lives they’ve lived, being told their love is wrong at every step, being told they deserved to be locked up or burnt alive?

Ty Lee has nightmares still that she is the one who was standing in Zuko’s place three and a half years ago, having to answer Fire Lord Ozai himself for the fact that she kissed Azula or Mai when she was well aware it was wrong, that it’s _her_ face that was set alight because the world discovered her secret. She’s woken up clutching her cheek because it _burns_ and she’s cried herself back to sleep because she thinks she probably deserves to have been the one in Zuko’s place. All Zuko did was speak out of turn. Ty Lee kissed the crown princess, and she kissed her associate while taking over Ba Sing Se, and all Ty Lee does is fall in love with people she can never have.

“I think,” Ty Lee whispers, but she doesn’t even know what she thinks anymore. She thinks she wants to risk it all for Mai, she thinks she knows Mai doesn’t quite feel the same, she thinks she can probably handle Mai telling her that but she still doesn’t want her to say it aloud. So Ty Lee rephrases her thoughts into a question. “Do you think we deserve this?”

“Yes,” Mai answers easily, and Ty Lee’s heart clenches at how certain Mai sounds. “Yes, because we’re Fire Nation. Yes, because we helped Azula take down Ba Sing Se. Yes, because,” Mai looks down, “because I think I might be in love with you and I know I’m not supposed to be.”

_One of those is not like the other_ , Ty Lee thinks, but maybe she’s wrong. They were born Fire Nation and they were born into the families that set them up to be Azula’s friends. They were born unlucky, because of the clothes they wear and the beliefs they were raised on and the fact that their love is wrong, and now they’re in prison to pay for their sins.

Except, they’re in prison to pay for the one thing they might have done right.

“Mai…” Ty Lee whispers. She wants to say _I think I might be in love with you too_ , but really, she doesn’t _think_ that. She _knows_ she is in love with Mai, knows she would do anything Mai asked, knows she wants to wrap up in Mai forever and not care what the rest of the world says is right or wrong. So in lieu of words, Ty Lee tilts Mai’s face towards her and presses their lips together.

It’s soft and quick, but Ty Lee tries to put her own promise into it: _I will stay by your side for as long as you’ll have me_. If the look in Mai’s eyes when Ty Lee pulls back and the soft pink glow of her aura are any indication, Mai is promising the same thing right back.

**to keep the goddess on my side**

**she demands a sacrifice**

For the fifth morning in a row since Mai and Ty Lee’s betrayal, Azula wakes up screaming, the skin on the left side of her face hot to the touch. For the fifth morning in a row, Azula wishes she never tried to dabble in heatbending, because she doesn’t know at all how to control it. For the fifth morning in a row, Azula touches the left side of her face and is surprised to feel that her skin is still smooth instead of rough and scarred like her brother’s. For the fifth morning in a row, Azula turns to look at the portrait still hanging on her bedroom wall with gaping holes singed around the edges where her mother and brother should be.

For the fifth morning in a row, there is a knock on the door and a voice asking, “Are you okay, Your Majesty?” despite the fact that this is just normal now; Azula wakes up screaming and she waves off anyone who tries to act worried because she knows they don’t _really_ care; they’re just paid to pretend they do. 

Azula is walking through life on edge now, because there’s no one left she could possibly trust. She has a secret that burns through her like the ghost of a kiss from someone who doesn’t love you anymore, and if anyone discovers it, Azula will not be facing her father’s burning hand just in her dreams. And she wonders if, in the same way Mai loves Zuko more than she fears Azula, Ty Lee loves Mai more than she fears Azula. She wonders if their friendship was always rooted in fear first and foremost, or if that came later, when Azula was so afraid of ending up like her brother that she made everyone scared of her instead of risking having to be afraid of the people around her.

But now, here Azula is anyways, afraid every single person she so much as glances towards is out to get her. Agni knows Azula is headed for self destruction, and any person in the palace could be the one Agni chooses to bring Azula down. It would take one sentence whispered in the wrong ears for Azula to end up exactly like Zuko, exactly like Mai and Ty Lee, exactly like Uncle Iroh, exactly like Lu Ten.

Azula supposes her father is probably young enough to have a third child. And if that’s the case, he will have no qualms about disposing of Azula when he learns how her heart still yearns for a girl who ran away to join the circus and proved she’d choose Mai over Azula a hundred times over. He will have no qualms about treating Azula in the exact same way he treated Zuko or her mother or her grandfather.

For the sixth morning in a row, Azula wakes up screaming, the skin on the left side of her face hot to the touch. Her throat stings and her hands ache to burn down something, _anything_ , but Azula just stares at the portrait on her wall and tells the servant at her door to go away.

**_drain the whole sea_ **

During the day, Ty Lee teaches the Kyoshi Warriors how to chi block, and the Kyoshi Warriors offer lessons of their own in turn. Most days, Mai will sit and watch or stand next to Ty Lee and let Ty Lee brush her fingers over Mai’s body in order to show the Kyoshi Warriors where the pressure points are that will to render someone unable to move. 

At night, Mai and Ty Lee will sit on one of their beds and wrap themselves in each other’s arms and silently wonder if Zuko and the Avatar will act soon, if they’ll win and end the war, or if Fire Lord Ozai will overpower them.

And then, Sozin’s comet turns the sky orange and everyone stares upwards, wondering what Fire Lord Ozai is doing, wondering what the Avatar is doing, wondering what _Zuko_ is doing. Mai holds onto Ty Lee’s hand like a lifeline, clinging to her with the same urgency she had all those years ago when Zuko faced his father in an Agni Kai and the only noise sounding around them was Zuko’s screaming and Mai had thought for sure that as soon as she let Ty Lee go, she would have to look down and see that Zuko was dead.

Two days after Sozin’s comet, the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors marches into the prison alongside a short girl with black hair who is dressed in Earth Kingdom clothing. The two girls announce that they’re here on orders directly from Avatar Aang and Crown Prince Zuko to free the Kyoshi Warriors, Mai, and Ty Lee from prison. The Kyoshi Warriors all swarm around the girl wearing their uniform - Suki, Mai hears them say - and the other girl walks over to Mai and Ty Lee.

“You’re Zuko’s friends?” she asks. “Don’t nod - I can’t see if you do.”

“Yeah, we’re Zuko’s friends,” Ty Lee says, but Mai is too busy looking at the girl and realizing her eyes are a pale shade of green and sure enough, they stay locked straight ahead of her even when Ty Lee speaks instead of looking over towards the voice.

“Sweet!” the girl says. “I’m Toph. Zuko was really worried about you guys, so he’ll be glad to know you’re safe.”

Mai looks over at Ty Lee and sees the same hopefulness in her grey eyes that Mai feels bubbling up inside of her. Maybe they’re going to be okay.

get something shiny

Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord, but here he is, at a feast to celebrate his coronation with the hairpiece his father wore every day of Zuko’s life sitting snugly on his head. Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord, but here he is anyways with an entire nation that’s known nothing but war for a hundred years that he needs to turn into a kind and loving and forgiving people.

Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord, but more than that, he doesn’t want the crown falling on his head only because there’s no one else left. Because that means, when Zuko can’t provide an heir, there will be no one in place to take the throne after Zuko’s death. Right now, he supposes that Uncle would take over if Zuko were to die suddenly, but what about when Zuko is older? If Zuko outlives Uncle, there will be no one left besides Azula, who may never fully recover and who shouldn’t be put on the throne either way.

Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord because his heart belongs to a boy from the Southern Water Tribe who’s seated on his left because he knows that’s Zuko’s weak side and Zuko doesn’t like just anyone sitting there. Zuko wants to give the crown over to the first person who asks for it and follow his friends around the world, visiting their homes and meeting their other friends and not having to worry about trying to fix a country that only knows war and trying to help the rest of the world heal from a war his ancestors caused and he now has to answer for.

Zuko has never wanted to be Fire Lord. He wanted Azula to take the crown so he could be free of the responsibility, but he doesn’t really have a choice now, does he? 

And yet, when he looks over at Sokka to find the other boy already staring at him, a soft look in his eyes, Zuko just smiles at him like they can be together. Zuko reaches over for his hand like it isn’t a death sentence for both of them. Zuko knocks his leg against Sokka’s like there is any hope at all in the world for the two of them, and for just a moment, Zuko lets himself believe there is.

Sokka squeezes his hand and hooks his leg around Zuko’s, and for just a moment, Zuko can believe the two of them are the only ones in the room and they’re allowed to be two boys in love instead of two boys who have to fix the mistakes of a hundred years of war they’re too young to even comprehend the full scope of.

_something meaty for the main course_

_that’s a fine looking high horse_

Ty Lee and Mai stand in Kyoshi Warrior uniforms once more, but this time side-by-side with the actual Kyoshi Warriors, standing guard for Zuko as he conducts one of his first meetings as Fire Lord. He sits on the throne, but he leans forward, towards the council. Mai is standing directly to his right, occasionally whispering things to him, and Ty Lee is pretty sure she’s just repeating things other people have said so he can hear.

Ty Lee isn’t sure, but she thinks maybe Zuko lost at least some of the hearing in his left ear after the Agni Kai. It explains why he’s leaning so far forward despite the fact that Ty Lee knows for certain he isn’t particularly interested in any of these meetings, and it explains why Mai is stationed so close to him.

The meeting drags on, and Ty Lee honestly wishes she could backflip around the room and chi block all of the old men spitting such derogatory and insulting things towards Zuko, but she’s only here to protect Zuko physically. The generals and officials and advisors can spew any hurtful things they want towards Zuko, and they’ll play victim if they have to pay for it, so Ty Lee clenches her hands into fists and watches Mai’s bored expression flicker every time someone says something particularly harsh.

Once the meeting has ended and everyone besides Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee has filtered out of the room, Zuko lets his shoulders slump. He reaches up and pulls the hairpiece from his hair, and drops it on the floor next to him. “I don’t want to be Fire Lord,” he says, and Ty Lee isn’t sure if he’s talking to Mai and Ty Lee as friends who should be there for him or guards who should stay silent. “I know I don’t have a choice, but I never wanted this.”

“I don’t blame you,” Mai responds. Ty Lee takes that as her cue that they’re friends instead of guards again and she flips over to stand next to Mai, hooking her arm around Mai’s waist because that’s a platonic enough action, she thinks. 

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Ty Lee asks, though she’s pretty sure the answer is to just keep doing what they’re doing; acting as guards and letting Zuko vent to them when needed.

Zuko sighs. He buries his head in his heads, and Ty Lee decides that this is _not_ fair to him. Zuko shouldn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders at sixteen whether he was born royalty or not. He shouldn’t have to sit on the edge of a throne, straining to hear the people he’s supposed to be working with throw as many vile words towards him as they can think of. “I think I deserve this,” Zuko admits in a quiet voice, and Ty Lee _knows_ that tone because it’s the same way Mai admitted to Ty Lee that she thought they deserved to be thrown in prison and it’s the same doubt that creeps into Ty Lee’s mind every time her eyes linger on Mai a little too long in a crowded room.

“Do you think,” and Zuko is looking at Mai now, but he doesn’t tell Ty Lee to leave, so Ty Lee stays and listens too as he says, “I could repeal the laws outlawing same-sex marriage? Not _now_ , obviously, but… someday? So… maybe fewer kids will grow up like us, thinking they deserve bad things just because of who they love?”

And it’s not quite a confession, but Zuko did say _us_ , which crashes into Ty Lee so harshly she nearly stumbles backwards, because this means they are all broken beyond repair in the exact same way. Which is why Ty Lee lets go of Mai and lunges forward to wrap Zuko in a hug. 

“Yeah,” Mai answers, and Ty Lee can hear the smile in her voice. “I think we could make that work.” And Ty Lee really likes the way Mai says _we_ because maybe the three of them will be remembered for more than banishment and falling in love with the wrong sort of person - maybe the three of them could be remembered for making things _right_.

**what you got in the stable?**

**we’ve a lot of starving faithful**

Azula hasn’t seen anyone besides her doctors in three weeks, since Zuko first brought her here and promptly left because he has more important things to worry about than a crazy little sister. She knows the Avatar took her father’s bending away, she knows Zuko is Fire Lord now, but she doesn’t know much more than that. The doctors tend to either not answer her questions or truthfully tell her they don’t know.

Azula wonders why she was allowed to keep her bending. She hasn’t used it in three weeks, but she can still feel fire and lightning flowing through her body. She doesn’t have any fight left in her, and maybe Zuko could see that, and maybe that’s why she was allowed to keep her bending. Maybe it was another act of pity, because clearly that was the only thing anyone felt for her now.

They pitied her, because she had lost her mind and her will to live and everyone who had ever even marginally cared for her was dead, imprisoned, or ignoring her existence because they’d turned on the Fire Nation.

It wasn’t like Azula could even blame them, though. She’d seen their father burn Zuko’s face same as everyone else, and that had been an act of mercy. Zuko should not have made it out of that Agni Kai alive, and Azula should not have made it out of her Agni Kai alive. Zuko should have stood over Azula where Katara had handcuffed her and scorched her face, keeping the flames there long enough that not even a firebender could withstand the heat, he should have given her a scar to match his own at best and ended her life at worst. And instead, he’d looked down at her in pity and decided she got to not only live, but walk away without any scars to prove they’d fought. Zuko had a burn across his face and lightning marks zigzagging across his chest, and Azula could look her entire body over and find not one single scar to indicate she’d even lived at all.

But Azula could look in the mirror, see the uneven way her bangs framed her face and the lost look in her eyes, and she could see that her father hadn’t needed to burn her face because he’d taken his flames directly to Azula’s mind. 

**_that looks tasty_ **

Four weeks after the war ends, Mai and Ty Lee bid the Kyoshi Warriors who stayed in the Fire Nation farewell, their own sets of uniforms and face paint back in the palace. Suki promised they would be back soon, but they needed to regroup with everyone and decide their next move as a whole. But she’d also said Mai and Ty Lee were officially part of their group now and welcome on the island whenever they desired. She’d asked if they wanted to go back with her, but Mai knew they had work to do in the Fire Nation still. Zuko shouldn’t be left cleaning up the nation’s messes on his own, and Mai and Ty Lee owe it to the world to help him.

Mai feels Ty Lee wrap her arms around her torso, and Mai rests her head on Ty Lee’s shoulder. It would have been so much easier to run away with the Kyoshi Warriors, where they didn’t have to worry about hiding, but they could either deal with guilt for being in love or guilt for leaving Zuko on his own, and Mai knows that even after all this time, she’ll still choose Zuko over herself.

that looks plenty

Five weeks after the war ends, Sokka returns to the Fire Nation. Despite the fact that he’s only been gone two weeks, as soon as he and Zuko are alone, he’s kissing Zuko like they haven’t seen each other in years. Zuko thinks he probably has a meeting he’s going to be late for, but that thought seems very far away right now and he can’t quite grasp it well enough for it to be a true concern.

Sokka’s lips move down to Zuko’s neck and Zuko lets out something halfway between a sigh and a moan and digs his fingers deeper into Sokka’s waist. There is something - as there always is - that tells Zuko he should push Sokka away before they both get hurt, but there’s something much stronger that wants to hold onto Sokka until Agni himself has to pry them apart, and that second something is always what wins over. And it’s what has Zuko’s hand coming up to pull the ribbon out of Sokka’s hair, letting his hair fall down so Zuko can run his fingers through it, and deciding that he can be a few minutes late for a meeting if it means he can kiss Sokka for just a little longer.

_this is hungry work_

Six weeks after the war ends, Zuko brings up the issue of the same-sex marriage laws in a meeting. Mai is positioned on his right and Ty Lee is on his left, both of them in Kyoshi Warrior uniform in order to be taken seriously as guards. Ty Lee watches Zuko speak with an intensity she rarely sees in him during these meetings - it’s the passion he has when he tells Mai why _Love Amongst the Dragons_ is his favorite play or when he complains to Ty Lee about the Ember Island Players - because this? This is something Zuko cares deeply about, and Ty Lee knows she and Mai are standing more threateningly than usual because this is something _they_ care about too.

And the arguments and accusations come, because of course they do, but Mai pulls out a knife and looks down at the blade, and suddenly everyone’s words are just a smidge less harsh. Ty Lee watches Mai wipe a cloth against the blade and she knows that they can face years of meetings like this one, where everyone argues and nothing happens, but Ty Lee will not give up until she and Mai and Zuko are allowed to love freely and Fire Nation kids don’t have to grow up under the same laws they did.

**take me to church**

**i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies**

Azula has lost track of how long it’s been since the end of the war when Ty Lee makes her first appearance. She thinks maybe it’s going on two months, but time is measured here in visits from Zuko (three), mirrors Azula breaks (five), and highly supervised five-minute walks in the hospital courtyard (twelve). Ty Lee is the first person to visit Azula besides Zuko and the one time some Water Tribe kid came with him and briefly waved to Azula before he went off to talk to some of the doctors about something Zuko had explained to her but Azula hadn’t bothered listening to.

Ty Lee sits across from Azula in a room with several doctors stationed around the perimeter, because Azula is still not to be trusted despite the fact that she has yet to do anything that puts anyone in danger besides herself, and Azula is pretty sure the doctors aren’t here to protect her.

“Why are you here?” Azula asks Ty Lee instead of putting the effort into opening up and having the meaningful conversation she knows she needs to have. She wonders why Ty Lee came alone until Ty Lee opens her mouth and speaks in the same bubbly tone she’s had since they first met.

“I came to share the good news! Fire Lord Zuko is repealing the laws banning same-sex marriage.”

Azula blinks. She stares straight through Ty Lee, sure she must have heard the other girl incorrectly, because how and why would Zuko do that? Azula doubts their father’s council members have taken too kindly to Zuko, of all people, being their ruler, and moving to repeal those laws would just encourage all of the speculations that will never go away anyways.

“What?” is all Azula can manage.

“It was made public knowledge today,” Ty Lee continues, “and I thought you might like to know,” Ty Lee pauses briefly, but Azula picks up on it all the same, “know how your brother is changing the Fire Nation for the better, I mean.”

“Why?” Azula croaks out. “Why would he do that?” Because the only reasons Azula can think of are either Ty Lee came out to him, or he managed to figure Azula out and this is for her, but why would Zuko do _anything_ for her? He shouldn’t have even spared her life. “Doesn’t he know what everyone says about him?”

Ty Lee’s eyes dart around the room nervously, and Azula knows she isn’t going to say what she wants to because there are too many people listening in on their conversation. Instead, she says, “He decided that the peoples’ happiness is more important than him shutting down rumors that will run rampant no matter what he does.” She taps her fingers against the table, then moves to running them over her braid. “He’s a good ruler, Azula. I really hope…” She frowns. “I really hope the four of us can be friends again.” She gets up to leave, but Azula jumps forward and grabs Ty Lee’s wrist.

“Wait!”

Ty Lee looks back, and Azula drops her wrist suddenly, realizing her hand was heating up. She shakes it to cool it down, but it doesn’t really work. “I’m sorry.” She’s been thinking it for however long she’s been in here, but she refused to say it to Zuko. She still has some ounce of either pride or her father’s voice living in her mind. But she can say it to Ty Lee, and if Mai ever comes, she can say it to her too. “I was a bad friend, and I’m sorry. I…” Azula sighs. “Thank you. For visiting me.”

There was a time when Azula believed she was in love with Ty Lee - and maybe she had been - but now, those feelings have faded and Azula just wants her friend back.

Ty Lee beams. “Of course! And, for the record, I already forgave you. But thank you; your apology means a lot to me. I know it wasn’t easy.” 

And Ty Lee’s voice is a sort of serious Azula has never heard from her, which is why Azula blurts out, “Can I hug you?” Because she’s being given a second chance she doesn’t deserve, and she doesn’t want to start that out by assaulting Ty Lee.

“Yes,” Ty Lee grins, “you can hug me.”

**_i’ll tell you my sins_ **

Mai lets Ty Lee convince her to visit Azula, mostly because she misses her friend despite everything Azula has done and despite the fact that she knows she shouldn’t really miss her. The room they’re shoved into is dull grey and doctors dressed in white robes are standing guard. Mai isn’t clear on whether they’re there to protect her and Ty Lee from Azula or to protect Azula from her and Ty Lee.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Azula says once they’re all seated, and Mai might have genuinely fallen backwards if she hadn’t spent an entire lifetime learning to hide her emotions. Even so, she feels her mouth fall open in shock. “I apologized to Ty Lee when she came last time, but I need to apologize to you too,” Azula continues. She sounds like she’s rehearsed these lines, but that doesn’t make Mai doubt the sincerity of them. If Azula didn’t _want_ to apologize, she wouldn’t be apologizing, simple as that. 

“I was controlling and used fear to keep you two close to me, and I understand that was wrong. I… I want to blame it on how I was raised, but I… think I need to take responsibility for my actions. Or, that’s what I’ve been told, at least.” Azula shoots a bitter look at one of the doctors, who doesn’t seem fazed. “But I really am sorry for how I acted. It was wrong, and I understand that now. I wasn’t able to see it before.” Azula hesitates, like there’s something else she wants to say, but she isn’t quite sure if she should say it or not. “Ty Lee already knows this too, but I--” 

For the first time in Mai’s life, Azula looks both ashamed and worried, like she cares how Mai will react to what she has to say. Mai doesn’t know what to make of this new Azula, except she makes a mental note to tell Zuko his decision to send her here was clearly a good one.

“I guess it’s technically legal now, so I wanted to tell you that I… am gay.”

“ _What_?” Mai says before she can even register she’s talking. She looks over at Ty Lee, who looks caught off guard despite the fact that Azula said she already knew. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there is one likely way for Ty Lee to have known Azula liked girls already and _not_ have been expecting Azula to come out, but Mai can’t exactly be _mad_ at her for not saying anything. Mai wouldn’t have wanted to out Azula either.

Mai slips her hand over to Ty Lee’s leg under the table and squeezes it. They can talk about this later, when there aren’t doctors listening in on their conversation.

“Why are you both looking at me like that?!” Azula demands, but this time, Mai knows she won’t retaliate with fire if they answer hesitantly or with words Azula doesn’t want to hear.

Ty Lee clears her throat. “We were going to come out to you,” she admits. There’s really no reason to _not_ carry on with their plan, Mai supposes.

Azula frowns. “I already know you like girls, Ty Lee.”

“I do too,” Mai interjects, because clearly her mind has decided that’s the best thing to say right now.

“ _What?_ ” Azula hisses, looking back and forth between Mai and Ty Lee. Mai can see the realization dawn in Azula’s eyes as they widen and she leans back. She crosses her arms. “Hm. I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming.” And then, most shocking of all, Azula laughs. It isn’t cruel or ruthless; it’s genuine and happy. It’s like Azula might be healing even if, based on what Zuko has been saying, she refuses to let him see that. It’s like maybe they have a shot at being more than kids traumatized by war and parents who could never fully love them.

you can sharpen your knife

The guards let Zuko pass without word as he steps into the room and stares at the metal bars separating him from his father. Zuko hates the fact that even now, when he is Fire Lord and his father his powerless, there is still a deep fear settling over Zuko as he comes to a stop and looks past the bars into the cell where his father is sitting with his back to the wall furthest from Zuko. He hates that there is some part of him that believes his father will always have this sort of power over him, no matter how much he grows or how many times his friends assure him that his father can never and will never hurt him again.

“It’s funny,” Zuko says, because it kind of is in some twisted way, “that I ended up being the one on the throne.” Anyone else - Azula included - would be better prepared to be the ruler of a nation. Zuko was never trained in any of the ways of the Fire Nation monarchs, and Iroh had to give him speed lessons while Zuko was still healing before the coronation. “And I think,” Zuko adds, because he really has been thinking about this a lot, “that the royal bloodline should end with me.”

He’s only come down here to confirm what he knows to be true in the way his father’s face twists into a sort of disgust Zuko has not seen since he was thirteen years old and refused to fight. His father spouts a slur, and because Zuko is so desensitized to everything these days, he just laughs. He hears a bit of Azula in it, he thinks, in the way he’s bordering on pure insanity because he’s stopped caring about everything besides the nine people he actually likes.

“It doesn’t hurt when it’s all anyone ever says,” Zuko tells him. His father’s face doesn’t falter. “And it doesn’t matter whether I am or not because everyone thinks it anyways.” He picks a thread off his robe and drops it on the floor. “I was just wondering what you thought of my plan.”

“You are a disgrace.”

“True,” Zuko agrees. “You’re not wrong. But I’m hoping to change that, because I don’t really think it’s fair to grow up being told you’re the worst kind of person just because of the way you exist. I don’t expect you to understand, but it does things to your mind. Spirals it downwards until you don’t know left from right and you don’t think there’s anyone you can trust and you…” Zuko’s voice trails off and he feels his expression shift from smug to stunned as a realization crashes into him at full force. _And you’re cutting your own hair and screaming out fire because a life of being told you’re unlovable and broken can’t do anything but drive you to some sort of madness._

_It’s funny_ , Zuko thinks, because it kind of is in some twisted way, _that he and Azula would share in the worst affliction possible_.

_offer me that deathless death_

The three of them fall into easy conversation, and it’s almost like old times. Azula tells Ty Lee and Mai about all of the hospital drama she’s overheard, and Ty Lee and Mai tell Azula how things are in the Fire Nation. Ty Lee is halfway through a story of the time she and Sokka successfully smuggled a turtleduck into a meeting for Zuko when the Fire Lord himself walks through the doors and dismisses all of the doctors with a wave of his hand.

“We need to talk,” he tells Azula, but he also doesn’t tell Ty Lee and Mai to leave, so Ty Lee isn’t sure what, exactly, she’s supposed to do.

“About?” Azula asks, narrowing her eyes at her brother. Ty Lee definitely feels like she and Mai should be leaving, but something is keeping her glued to her seat, unable to tear her eyes away from whatever is about to happen between Zuko and Azula.

“I’m gay,” Zuko tells her flatly, and that was probably the last thing Ty Lee expected him to blurt out, and it doesn’t make sense with how he stormed into the room like he was mad. Mai opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then clamps it back shut and just watches Azula’s blank expression as she stares at Zuko for several very long moments.

“You’re what?” Azula questions finally, blinking slowly. “You’re-- No?” She points to Mai, then Ty Lee, then Zuko, then herself, quietly mouthing something as she does so. “That’s statistically… barely even possible.” She furrows her eyebrows. “And you…” She moves her finger back towards Zuko, “are the Fire Lord.”

Zuko frowns. “The Fire Lord can be gay. Did you know-- _Actually_ , never mind. Not important. I’ll tell you another time.” He shakes his head, then pulls the hairpiece out of his hair and shoves it into his pocket. He looks at Azula. “I should have realized sooner. I’m sorry. Maybe we could’ve been something other than sworn enemies.”

Azula stands up sharply and marches over to Zuko. Ty Lee tenses, ready to chi block someone if necessary, though she’s honestly not sure which sibling she might end up needing to defend. Azula jabs her finger into Zuko’s chest, and he steps backwards. “No.”

“No?”

“Don’t apologize to me!” Azula shouts.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What did I _just_ say?”

“I’m--” Zuko puts a hand over his mouth and motions for Azula to continue talking, and yeah, this day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

“We’re not supposed to have anything in common,” Azula says. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the gay sibling, and _you’re_ supposed to carry on the royal bloodline. That was the only reason I brought you back home! I was going to offer you whatever the hell you wanted if you let me be Fire Lord and agreed to marry Mai and make an heir. ...I mean, I guess it wouldn’t have _had_ to be Mai, but the point still stands.”

Zuko lowers his hand slowly. “Wait. That’s why, when you were asking what I wanted in exchange for the throne, you got mad when I said I didn’t want to marry anyone?”

“YES!”

“Oh.” And then Zuko’s face breaks into a smile and he practically _giggles_. “Look at us,” he says, glancing back at Ty Lee and Mai. “We’re just…” he shakes his head, “we’re everything the world hates, and they all want us to fix everything. The Fire Nation has put all it’s faith in me - and by extension Mai and Ty Lee - and they’re all two words away from wanting us dead.”

And the worst part, Ty Lee thinks as Mai wraps an arm around her, is that Zuko is exactly right.

good god, let me give you my life

Zuko makes it a habit, then, to meet with Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee once every week. On Saturdays, they eat dinner together and talk about whatever comes to mind and pretend that nothing bad has ever happened between them. For the hour and half they spend together, they’re just four teenagers who can finally be honest with each other. Mai and Ty Lee can hold hands, Azula can talk about the cute intern from the Earth Kingdom, Zuko can talk about his most recent letter from Sokka.

The week before Sokka, Katara, and Aang are set to return to the Fire Nation for a few days, Zuko decides to take a risk that might not be as dangerous as his brain tells him it is.

“How would you all feel about me inviting Sokka next week?” he asks, twisting his robe in his hands. “I’m not sure he’d even say yes, but I… I want him to be friends with you guys.” Sokka is already sort of friends with Mai and Ty Lee - they get along when he’s visiting, but he never stays all that long because he has a thousand things to do back in the Southern Water Tribe and Zuko _hates_ it, but he knew this would happen as soon as Uncle looked him in the eye and told him he needed to be Fire Lord.

“Oooh,” Azula smirks, but it’s in the sort of way Katara smiles right before telling an embarrassing story of Sokka and not in the way Azula used to smile before ripping Zuko to shreds with a single sentence. “You’re ready for me to meet your boyfriend?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve already met him,” Zuko points out.

“Still.”

“Well _I_ think it’s a wonderful idea,” Ty Lee interrupts. “You should definitely invite him!”

“Yeah,” Mai agrees drily. “Then Azula can dig up some embarrassing baby stories like Katara does for Sokka when we’re all together.”

And somehow, Azula telling Sokka embarrassing stories from their childhood doesn’t even worry Zuko, because that’s what Katara does, and while he doesn’t know much about healthy sibling relationships, he knows that Sokka and Katara are a good example. So if Azula is going to do to him something Katara does to Sokka, he’ll gladly accept it.

_take me to church_

_i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_

Before Ty Lee knows it, the four of them are back for another dinner with Azula, but Sokka has joined them this time, sitting on Zuko’s left and looking a little hesitant about being there. He’s sitting far closer to Zuko than is strictly necessary, and as they eat in silence, he keeps shooting wary glances towards Azula. Zuko either doesn’t notice or has simply decided to ignore it.

Finally, Azula holds Sokka’s glare and says, “I’m not going to _do_ anything, you know.”

Sokka narrows his eyes. “Sorry for being wary, but last time I saw you, you’d just struck my _boyfriend_ with lightning and nearly killed him.”

“Whatever.” Azula rolls her eyes and goes back to her food. 

Zuko gives Sokka what Ty Lee can only describe as a _Look_ , and the two have one of their silent conversations, exchanging words using only facial expressions. They go back and forth for a few minutes before Sokka crosses his arms and huffs out a, “Fine.” He stares down at his food like it’s personally offended him until Ty Lee can’t take it anymore and has to break the silence.

“So, Sokka. What’s the South Pole like?”

“Cold,” he deadpans. Zuko elbows him. “Um, and snowy. I know you don’t get snow in the Fire Nation - which is an absolute _travesty_ \- but there’s so much snow back home that you’d take one look and probably decide you’d never want to see snow again. _But_ it’s awesome for building snowmen and having snowball fights year round-- You probably don’t know what those are. Never mind, then. _Anyways_ ,” Sokka rambles on about the South Pole, and that leads into him talking about all of the reconstruction that’s happening now that the war has ended.

Ty Lee’s eyes drift from Sokka over to Zuko, who is watching his boyfriend with a soft smile on his face - a smile Ty Lee recognizes as the same one she wears whenever she’s listening to Mai talk about different types of knives or visiting her aunt’s flower shop. 

Ty Lee loses herself in a daydream of visiting the flower shop Mai’s aunt owns and buying flowers for Mai just to see her face light up when Ty Lee presents them to her. Ty Lee would do anything to see Mai smile - it’s something most people don’t have the pleasure of seeing, but Ty Lee has a running list of ways to draw smiles out of Mai in her mind, and she knows flowers would do the trick. She’s so deep in her fantasy that it takes her half a second too long to realize something isn’t right.

**i’ll tell you my sins**

**so you can sharpen your knife**

Azula is shooting lightning from her fingertips before she can register that she made a conscious decision to bend for the first time in almost four months. The bolts zap through the air right as the lights flicker out and the only thing Azula can see illuminated by the vaguely blue electricity is a pair of gold eyes widening in fear.

There’s a shout of pain, and then a body hitting the ground before Zuko summons enough fire for Azula to be able to see the four people who were eating dinner with her and the two other assassins (Azula _assumes_ they’re assassins) behind Zuko and Sokka. Azula doesn’t know what she’s thinking - or maybe she isn’t thinking at all - because she raises her hands towards Zuko’s fire and bends it away from him and back towards the assassins.

The assassins jump backwards to avoid the flame, but it’s enough for Zuko and Sokka to spin around. Zuko moves in front of Sokka, summoning more fire and blasting it towards the assassins. Azula wants to help, but her hands are shaking and she’s out of breath. Ty Lee hops onto the table, flips over to the assassins, and has them on the ground in a matter of moments. 

Azula’s legs give out and she crumples to the ground. She feels… _cold_?

“Azula?” Zuko asks. “What happened?”

Azula tries to answer, but she can’t get any words out of her mouth and she’s not entirely sure what she should say anyways. _I’m just tired_? _I’m very cold_? _I haven’t bent in four months and I think my body forgot how to handle it_?

**_offer me my deathless death_ **

**_good god, let me give you my life_**

Mai can only watch in horror as Azula sinks to the ground, only vaguely illuminated by the candles Zuko relit. She’s not allowed to bring weapons into the hospital, and she knows they must have disarmed Sokka too, which meant she had to watch Azula, Zuko, and Ty Lee fight the assassins off and now she’s watching as Azula’s face pales dangerously.

Zuko swoops down to his sister, bringing her head into his lap. “Did they hurt you?” He grabs her hands. “Agni, Azula, how are you so cold?” Zuko’s eyes widen. “Are you heatbending?”

“Oh,” Azula mumbles. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Mai looks over at Ty Lee, and Sokka voices what all three of them are thinking. “Uh, babe, what the hell is heatbending?”

Zuko closes his eyes. He drops Azula’s hands and places his fingers over her chest. “It’s a subform of firebending,” he explains. “You can manipulate the temperature of someone’s body, or the air itself. I can do it, but I’ve never been able to explain _how_. Azula and our father couldn’t, but… I guess Azula sort of figured it out?” He stops talking and breathes in deeply, before exhaling.

Mai, Ty Lee, and Sokka all move so they’re seated around Azula too, watching Zuko work. With each breath he takes, more color returns to Azula’s face, but she’s still shivering. Eventually, Zuko moves his hands away from her chest. He runs his fingers through her hair, smoothing it out. “You can’t control it, can you?”

Azula shakes her head. Mai has to guess that the _it_ Zuko is referring to is _heatbending_ , which, like, might have been a cool thing to know about before _right now_. If he’s always been able to do it, he could have bested his father in the Agni Kai by either raising or lowering his body temperature enough that he wasn’t able to function. Zuko could touch Mai’s arm and kill her without even trying. Zuko could _look_ at Mai and kill her without even lifting a finger.

Mai knows he wouldn’t, but to realize he even has that ability is… startling. But the fact that Zuko has never once - to Mai’s knowledge, at least - used heatbending to take out an assassin gives Mai the impression he hasn’t quite grasped how powerful it is, or he’s against using it to kill in the same way Katara’s said she’s against bloodbending (which is another terrifying sub-bending type, but that’s a whole _other_ conversation).

“I haven’t bent since I got here,” Azula mutters. “I shouldn’t have started back right away with lightning and bending _your_ fire. ‘t was stupid.”

“No,” Zuko insists. “It was kind.”

no masters or kings

when the ritual begins

Zuko stares at himself in the mirror. He pulls half his hair up into a topknot and puts the Fire Lord hairpiece in it. His hair is long enough that it barely reaches his shoulders now, and Zuko wonders if maybe he should cut it. He liked having his hair long when he was younger, but now - all dressed up in Fire Lord robes and that stupid, golden, hairpiece - Zuko is afraid long hair will make him look like his father. 

The scar ruins the picture, he knows this. He can’t look _exactly_ like his father when half his face will always be fiery reds and pinks. But Zuko raises his left hand over his scar and he feels something akin to hatred bubbling up inside his stomach. 

Zuko doesn’t want to be Fire Lord. That is the only truly coherent thought running through his mind in this moment. He _doesn’t_ want to be Fire Lord. He _never_ asked for this, he was far enough down the line that he wasn’t even supposed to have to worry about becoming Fire Lord. It was supposed to be Uncle, and then Lu Ten, and then Lu Ten’s kids. It wasn’t supposed to be Zuko.

“Your hair looks nice like that,” Sokka calls out from the doorway. Zuko sees Sokka’s reflection approach him on the right and sling an arm around his shoulders. Zuko still has a hand covering his eye. Sokka looks at Zuko’s reflection, then turns to look at Zuko. He reaches out and pulls Zuko’s hand down. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t want to be Fire Lord,” Zuko says instead of addressing why he was staring at his reflection with a hand over his scar. He sighs and reaches up to take the hairpiece from his hair, but Sokka stops him.

“Let me do it.”

“You’re not really supposed to,” Zuko tells him, but it’s just an automatic response because Zuko really doesn’t give a damn about the Sacred Hairpiece Rules. “That wasn’t a no,” he adds quickly. He bows his head. “I’m just letting you know. Don’t mention it to anyone.”

“Noted.” Sokka takes the hairpiece from Zuko’s hair but leaves the ribbon holding the topknot up in. Zuko looks up to see Sokka holding the hairpiece in his hands gingerly. He turns it over in his fingers and Zuko knows he should take it back, but he really doesn’t feel like touching it right now and the more fingerprints Sokka leaves on it, the better, in Zuko’s humble opinion.

“This is stupid,” Sokka says decisively, and Zuko has no idea what _this_ he’s referring to. The hairpiece? The rules that say Sokka can’t touch the hairpiece? “I mean, you being Fire Lord,” he clarifies. “Not that you can’t do it - because you _can_ , and you’re doing a really great job - but you’re also barely seventeen.” Sokka sets the hairpiece down so he can cup Zuko’s face with his hands. “You could abdicate the throne, turn the Fire Nation into a democracy, and come back home with me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Zuko mutters because really, he wants nothing more than to run away with Sokka. But it hasn't even been six months since the end of the war, so now is not the time for a government change. “I want to, trust me, I do. But I can’t. ...Not yet, at least.”

“I know.” Sokka leans forward, resting his forehead against Zuko’s. “I know.”

_there is no sweeter innocence_

_than our gentle sin_

Ty Lee stares at herself in the mirror. She wishes she could see herself looking back, but all she’s ever been able to see is the face of each of her sisters, all infinitely more loved than Ty Lee could ever be. Sure, Ty Lee had befriended the crown princess, but Ty Lee had also kissed her and Ty Lee can’t fall in love with a boy like her sisters all can and Ty Lee betrayed the Fire Nation for the girl she is in love with. 

Ty Lee doesn’t need to tell her sisters or parents that she’s in love with Mai, doesn’t need to tell them she is someone they can never be proud of. She knows how they’ll respond - with a variety of expressions ranging from disappointment to betrayal to full on disgust. She knows she has no chance with them. At best, they will tell her it’s “just a phase” and live in denial for the rest of their lives. At worst, they will hurl a thousand words at Ty Lee that she’s heard before while standing on Zuko’s left side, but their impact will hit a thousand times harder because it’s her _family_ saying them instead of bigoted old men whose auras are clouded with contempt.

Carefully, Ty Lee takes her hair out of its signature braid and lets the wavy strands fall around her shoulders. She stares at herself, trying to convince herself that the way she feels for Mai is wrong in the same way her family will. She tells herself she doesn’t love Mai, she just wants to _be_ her. She tells herself she can’t love Mai; that it isn’t physically possible for a girl to love another girl so deeply that it hurts. She tells herself that this was a choice - that Mai was a choice - and that she can wake up any day and choose to not be in love with her anymore. She tells herself that this isn’t permanent, that she isn’t going to spend the rest of her life wanting to kiss girls, that she’s lying to herself and everyone else. 

Ty Lee knows every argument. She has memorized the words, let them slip down her spine and rest somewhere deep inside of her. She has heard how wrong this is for her entire life. She knows, she knows, she _knows_ that her family would all plaster smiles on their faces and welcome her home with open arms if she pretends she can love in a way they will approve of. She knows that she could choose her family over Mai and her family will be none the wiser, thinking they love Ty Lee unconditionally. But the conditions have been set out since long before Ty Lee was born, and Ty Lee does not make the cut. Her family’s love will always be hung on the assumption that Ty Lee is straight.

The only unconditional love Ty Lee has ever truly felt is in the way Mai kisses her every time like it’s a promise and it’s in the way Mai entwines her fingers with Ty Lee’s and it’s in the way Mai sneaks into Ty Lee’s room at night with her hair down and moonlight pouring over them and it’s in the way Mai looks at Ty Lee like she is the only thing in the world that has ever mattered.

Which is why Ty Lee looks in the mirror and she decides that she is not going back to her family ever. Because they will never love her and why should Ty Lee subject herself to be surrounded by people who hate her so fiercely that they will _never_ be able to see Ty Lee as someone they could ever care for? Ty Lee’s most abhorrent sin is the simple act of brushing her lips against another girl’s behind a locked door, but it is the only one that cannot be forgiven.

**in the madness and soil**

**of that sad, earthly, scene**

Azula stares at herself in the mirror. Her eyes still look disoriented, like she’s unsure where she is and how she got here. Her bangs have been cut so they’re even again, but her hair still hangs down loose, draping over her shoulders and tumbling down her back. When Azula closes her eyes, she sees lightning flashes and a pair of scared golden eyes she’s afraid belong to Zuko, and she sees a hand on fire lowering itself over her face.

Azula studies the left side of her face, and it doesn’t seem fair that it isn’t burnt. She studies her eyes and it doesn’t seem fair that they get to look at lightning in awe instead of fear. She studies her hands and it doesn’t seem fair that she can still use them to cause such violent destruction despite everything she’s done. 

In the dark of her room at night, Azula is haunted by the sound of the assassin’s body thumping to the floor after she struck him with lightning. They said a waterbender healed him same as Zuko’s friend did to him, but Azula thinks she’d rather he be dead because that is just one more person walking around with a lightning-shaped scar across their body because of Azula.

Azula has seen the edges of the mark she left on her brother peeking out over the tops of his robes during his visits - the thin pink lines crawling up towards his collarbone, seared into his flesh forever. Just like the scar on his face. Another wound caused by the fire of a family member. 

Azula could have killed him, and she hadn’t even wanted to. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Zuko _or_ his waterbender friend; she’d wanted Zuko to redirect the lightning right back into her. But something in her that must have realized death is permanent had skewed her aim towards the waterbender instead. And still, she had thought Zuko would redirect it back to her, and Azula would have let him. Azula would have stood across from him and let her own lightning hit her square in the chest, because _that_ was exactly what she deserved.

And instead, Zuko has another scar from another Agni Kai with another family member and Azula once again walked away unscathed, save for the memories that eat away at her every time her eyes slip shut. She knows she has no right to wake up screaming, thinking her father is burning her instead of Zuko, but she does anyway. She knows she has no right to wake up in a cold sweat, feeling like lightning is crackling through her body because Zuko was successful in his redirection, but she does anyway.

Somewhere behind the lostness in Azula’s eyes is some much darker, much scarier. The eyes of a girl who wishes she’d killed for her brother and the eyes of a girl who wishes she’d died by her own lightning. And she knows, she _knows_ she shouldn’t be feeling like this. She’s apologized to Ty Lee, Mai, even Zuko and Sokka. She’s worked to be able to have a truly civil conversation with the brother she was set up to hate her entire life. She has people she could, quite possibly, truly call her friends.

And yet, Azula looks in the mirror and she considers, maybe, she should call down lightning one more time in order to rid the world of herself, because she deserves it. She _deserves_ it.

**_only then i am human_ **

**_only then i am clean_**

Mai stares at herself in the mirror. She narrows her eyes at her reflection, trying to figure out why it looks distinctly _wrong_. Everything about the person staring back at her is slightly off, in ways Mai can’t even begin to name. Her irises are too light, her hair is too long, her robes hang around her body oddly, and Mai knows this is what she’s always looked like, but she decides that it isn’t _right_.

She doesn’t even know who she is. She’s looking at whatever person she became as a culmination of what her parents expected her to be and who she could have actually been if not for them. She’s looking at a person who has never had full bodily autonomy, nor been able to even think her own thoughts without the intense guilt of how she was raised taking over. She’s looking at a person who wants to cry every time she kisses Ty Lee because how can something that feels so right be the thing that makes Mai completely unlovable?

“Mai?” Ty Lee’s voice calls out from the other room, and it’s only because it’s Ty Lee that Mai hears. “Are you alright?”

_No_ , everything inside Mai screams out. _No, I’m not, and I never have been_. But her mouth stays shut and her eyes stay glued to her reflection. Ty Lee appears behind her, standing on tiptoes, and meeting Mai’s eyes through the mirror.

“Is something bothering you?”

Mai reaches up and tangles her fingers into the ends of her hair. It _isn’t_ right, but Mai doesn’t know what _is_ right because she’s spent her entire life not knowing who she is because it was safer that way. She wants to tell Ty Lee how her entire body just feels wrong and how she wants to figure out who she is, but she doesn’t know where to begin and how she knows she loves Ty Lee, but that is the only thing she is entirely certain of.

Instead, she whispers, “Can you help me cut my hair?”

Ty Lee smiles. She leans forward, wrapping her arms around Mai and resting her chin on Mai’s shoulder. “Of course,” she says, and Mai feels some of the tension leave her body.

Ty Lee works diligently and carefully and Mai watches in the mirror as clumps of black hair fall to the ground. In the end, Mai’s hair falls to the tops of her shoulders, and she thinks, maybe, she looks like someone she actually wants to be. She thinks, maybe, she looks like someone who could love without shame and live without the hatred of her upbringing poisoning her every waking moment.

take me to church

i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

Two months after the assassination attempt at the hospital, Zuko invites Azula to come home for a night. Katara and Sokka both try to talk him out of it, but Aang sides with Zuko, and Mai and Ty Lee defend Zuko’s sister too. Finally, Sokka begrudgingly admits that she _did_ save Zuko’s life at the expense of her own body temperature, so Katara’s skepticism is outnumbered. Still, she insists that she and Aang stay in the palace for as long as Azula is there.

After dinner, Zuko leaves Azula with Mai and Ty Lee so Sokka can drag Zuko back to his room and he hardly waits until the door shuts behind them to shove Zuko back against the door and capture his lips in a bruising kiss. “What--” Zuko gasps between kisses, “--is this-- about?”

“Haven’t had you to myself in two months,” Sokka mumbles against Zuko’s lips. “Miss you.” He reaches up to Zuko’s hair and takes the hairpiece out with one hand while the other dances along Zuko’s waist. The hairpiece falls to the ground as soon as it’s free, and Zuko decides that such disregard would make every single person in the Fire Nation and every single one of his ancestors seethe with rage, and Zuko _loves it_. He hopes to Agni that Sozin and Azulon are rolling in their graves, able to sense that Zuko would toss the hairpiece in the ocean if it wouldn’t throw the nation into a civil war.

Zuko pushes Sokka forward, towards the direction he knows his bed is in, not wanting to break the kiss, but knowing there’s no way one of them won’t trip if they don’t separate. Sokka is the one who pulls away so Zuko doesn’t have to, tugging him back towards the bed. Sokka pulls Zuko down on top of him and Zuko is attaching his lips to a spot just above Sokka’s collarbone, reveling in every sound he draws out of Sokka’s mouth.

“ _Zuko_ ,” he whimpers, and Zuko realizes in that moment that Sokka is _it_ for him. He’s never going to feel this way about anyone else, and for some reason, the thought doesn’t even scare him. He pulls back to look at Sokka, taking in his flushed cheeks and blue eyes and light freckles and Zuko wants to drown in this moment, let it fill his lungs until he can’t breathe in anything else, until past, present, and future have all morphed into one and the only thing he has ever known is _Sokka_. 

“Sokka,” Zuko whispers back, hardly recognizing his own voice. Is this who Zuko is? Someone who can look into the eyes of the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen and not even feel guilty about it? Someone who would throw his entire nation into another war just so he can kiss the boy lying beneath him? Someone who looked at the beliefs he was raised on his entire life, realized how harmful and traumatizing they were, and said _NO_?

Zuko thinks of the hairpiece lying somewhere on the floor of his bedroom after Sokka took it out. He thinks that his father is still locked up somewhere far below them, seething in his cell because Zuko really was a disappointment at every turn. He thinks that he is disappointing every single one of his ancestors when one of his hands moves to cup Sokka’s cheek and he leans down, pressing his forehead against Sokka’s, and he mutters the surest thing that has ever fallen from his lips: “I love you.”

And it doesn’t feel wrong, it doesn’t feel shameful, it doesn’t feel anything like Zuko was taught it should. Because Sokka reaches one of his hands into Zuko’s hair and says, “I love you too. I love you so much it shouldn’t even be possible. Zuko--”

There’s a loud crash outside, and then the doors burst open.

_i’ll tell you my sins_

Ty Lee walks with one arm hooked around Mai’s and the other hooked around Azula’s. Azula is leading them somewhere, and she won’t say where, but Ty Lee isn’t even worried. She trusts Azula now, and knows she isn’t going to hurt her or Mai. They’ve come a long way in the past few months and Ty Lee thinks maybe, _maybe_ , Azula could live in the palace permanently one day.

Ty Lee thinks, too, that a lot of the trust she’s found for Azula stemmed from the assassination attempt two months prior. When Azula took down three assassins with two swift movements after months on end of not firebending. When Azula’s body went into shock and her temperature dropped dangerously low, and she didn’t even seem to mind.

Several doctors had rushed into the room just after that and two of them carried Azula away to examine her while Zuko explained what had happened to the others. But Zuko had kept glancing towards the door Azula had been taken through until Sokka had finally stepped forward and asked if they could go with Azula.

Ty Lee, Mai, and Sokka had _not_ been allowed to follow Zuko away to wherever Azula had been taken and were instead forced to wait in the lobby. Sokka had paced back and forth until Mai snapped and told him that pacing wasn’t going to do anything.

“I can’t help it,” Sokka had told her, pausing briefly. “I just--” he clenched his fists.

And then Mai - _Mai_ \- had let go of Ty Lee’s hand, stood up, and walked over to Sokka. She’d put her hands on his shoulders and said, “You have too much nervous energy in your body, and you never learned how to expel it quietly.” And Ty Lee knew Mai was right, because when Ty Lee gets nervous, she wants to pace back and forth for hours on end too, but she can’t. So she learned to play with her hair and swing her legs back and forth and tap her fingers against each other and just _barely_ stay in one place.

“Is that a bad thing?” Sokka had questioned, furrowing his eyebrows. And Mai had tilted her head at him, like he’d told her something she’d never considered, which he probably had. Ty Lee knows she and Mai had both been _told_ it was a bad thing, but… was it? How many things had they been told were bad growing up when really, they weren’t bad at all?

Azula stops walking suddenly, breaking Ty Lee from her thoughts. She pulls Ty Lee and Mai into a room Ty Lee thinks must be an old office. But it’s mostly empty, so it almost surely hasn’t been used in years. She presses a finger to her lips, and Ty Lee nods in understanding. The three of them hold their breaths as voices pass by the door, garbled and hard to make out.

But Ty Lee _does_ catch the words, “Fire Lord Zuko,” and “get him off the throne at all costs,” and “we’ll know if they’ve succeeded soon”. Based on the way Mai and Azula both widen their eyes, they’ve caught the same gist: Zuko is in danger, and the danger is almost definitely imminent.

**you can sharpen your knife**

The three of them run through the halls with Azula leading, because she memorized the fastest route everywhere during her years alone. She knows exactly how to get from where they are to Zuko’s room, but she isn’t sure if they’ll make it in time or not, and she isn’t even sure Zuko is _in_ his room. She thinks that was the direction Sokka pulled him away in, but she was trying to _not_ watch her brother undress his boyfriend with his eyes.

The door is hanging open when they round the corner, and Azula can hear the sounds of a fight, which means they might not be too late. The guards outside Zuko’s room are on the floor, hopefully just unconscious, but there’s no time to check. Azula can feel the air around her warming, but she focuses on internalizing it so she doesn’t accidentally hurt Mai or Ty Lee. Her body can take a lot more heat than theirs can.

There are two assassins in the room, both dressed in black, one of them foolish enough to turn and look when Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee step into the room. Sokka whacks him in the head with his boomerang, and he crumples to the ground. The other assassin is outnumbered five to one now, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He raises two fingers, and Azula knows what is coming.

She dives forward and catches the lightning in her hands, slamming her palms against the ground and praying to Agni that Zuko got far enough out of reach that he doesn’t get _another_ lightning scar from her. Azula feels the electricity crackle, breaking apart the ground around her. She feels the bolts shoot up her arms, and they might be wrapping around her entire body or she might just have forgotten what it feels like to wield so much power at once. The floor cracks beneath both her and the assassin, and Azula doesn’t know if she’s going to live for more than a few seconds longer, but she absolutely knows that if she dies, she’s taking the assassin across from her down too.

And she’s ready. This is what she’s always had coming - death by lightning, death by thinking she could bend her way out of anything. This is what Azula both wants and deserves, and she’s ready now.

**_offer me that deathless death_ **

A scream that might resemble Azula’s name rips from Mai’s throat. She tries to move forward, but Ty Lee grabs her arm and pulls her out of the way. Sokka does the same to Zuko, wrapping his fingers around him and yanking him backwards just in time for Azula to catch the assassin’s lightning in her hands.

Mai knows Zuko can redirect lightning, and she knows Azula can control fire bent by others, but she doesn’t know if Azula can survive this. The lightning crackles around Azula’s fingertips and she hurls herself to the ground, pushing the lightning into the floor beneath her. The assassin stares at her with wide eyes and the floor begins to break apart. The entire room is shaking and Azula is crying out, all Mai _does_ know in this moment is that this feels… vaguely familiar.

Except last time, Mai dug her face into Ty Lee’s shoulder so she wouldn’t have to watch. She’d heard the screams, though, and that tortured screaming had haunted Mai’s dreams for years. She still hears it on occasion, bolting upright in the middle of the night because her subconscious had decided it was time to relive the Agni Kai between Zuko and his father once more. She still remembers the utter dread that had overtaken her body as soon as it stopped, because as horrible as the screaming was, at least it meant Zuko was _alive_.

Now, watching Azula, Mai cannot tear her eyes away from the girl. Blue lightning crackles around her hands and forearms and spreads out across the ground around her and the assassin. Her eyes are screwed shut and she’s screaming out in the same way Zuko did so long ago, and all Mai can think is _she’s still alive, she’s still alive, she’s still alive_.

Zuko wrenches himself out of Sokka’s grasp, and Mai sees Sokka’s lips moving, forming Zuko’s name, but she can’t actually hear him say it. Zuko raises a hand towards the assassin, who promptly drops to the ground, his face so pale it’s almost blue. He steps towards Azula, but Sokka pulls him back again. Mai can see Zuko trying to fight him off, but she knows he won’t risk hurting Sokka.

Azula lets out a final, gut-wrenching, scream, and the lightning shoots out from either side of her, striking the window and shattering it in one direction, and searing into the door next to Mai and Ty Lee on the other. And then, Azula slumps forwards and the room goes cold.

good god, let me give you my life

“Azula!” Zuko cries. Sokka lets him go, and Zuko rushes over to his sister, dropping down next to her. “Get Katara!” he shouts to anyone who will listen. “Get Katara, GET KATARA!” His fingers find their way to Azula’s neck where her pulse is - where her pulse _should_ be, unless--

Zuko senses Ty Lee and Mai drop down next to him and he feels around for Azula’s pulse until finally, _finally_ , he feels the blood still pumping through her body. “She’s alive,” he whispers.

“Spirits,” he hears Mai mutter, and Zuko looks over to her, then follows her gaze down to Azula’s hands, which have bright red and pink lines crisscrossing them in similar patterns to the scar across Zuko’s own chest. In similar patterns to the web of marks across Aang’s back.

“No, no,” Zuko hears himself say, even though he’s not sure what he’s protesting. Doesn’t Azula deserve this; a taste of her own medicine? Scars to match Zuko’s, to show they’re both disappointments, to show neither one of them is going to carry on the royal bloodline and thousands of years of monarchy will be ended by two gay kids who refuse to grin and bear a marriage they don’t want. “Azula, _Agni_ , why would you do this?” Zuko asks like she can answer.

It feels like an eternity before Katara’s voice sounds through the room, telling everyone to clear away from Azula. Zuko doesn’t listen, but Mai and Ty Lee do, and Katara shoves herself down in the spot they vacated. Zuko watches as she encases Azula’s hands and arms with water first, then moves the water across her body until honing in on her chest.

Zuko is pretty sure they’re there for hours before Azula’s eyes crack open, but time has been moving slowly and thickly ever since Azula jumped in front of him, so there’s no way to tell for sure. Azula blinks up at Zuko, confusion crossing through her eyes. “Thank you,” he tells her.

Azula shakes her head weakly. “Don’t. I didn’t…” she winces. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“What?”

“Zuko,” she says, her voice hoarse, “I don’t think I want to live anymore.”

And really, Zuko should be trying to convince her that life is worthwhile because she has friends and because they’re finally getting along and because she’s allowed to love freely now and because there is so much to be hopeful about. But instead, the only thing Zuko can tell her is, “Yeah. I get it.”

_take me to church_

“Tui and La, _what_?” Katara asks. Neither Azula nor Zuko look like they have a good explanation for what they’ve just admitted, so Ty Lee figures she might as well speak up because she has a pretty good idea of where they’re coming from.

“We didn’t grow up like you,” she explains, shooting a glance in Sokka’s direction, because Sokka looks like he’s just seen a ghost and Ty Lee assumes that’s only a natural response after hearing your boyfriend admit that he understands not wanting to be alive. “We spent our entire lives being told the way we love is wrong, and it…” Ty Lee doesn’t know how to finish. She doesn’t want to put it into words, because no matter how she phrases it, it just sounds _bad_.

“It messes with your mind,” Mai finishes. “I get it too. Every day, I look in the mirror and I see someone who became her parents’ greatest failure and greatest disappointment because she fell in love with a girl. Every day, I have to walk through life knowing that this guilt I carry with me for loving Ty Lee is never going to fully go away, and it eats away at you so much some nights that you wonder if maybe it would be easier to just…” Mai lowers her voice, “just… stop existing.”

Ty Lee wraps her arms around Mai, but she doesn’t think there’s anything she could possibly say, because Mai already said it all. There will always be some sort of guilt in loving Mai, because Ty Lee cannot undo how she was raised. There will always be some sort of shame eating away at some part of her brain that just wants her parents and sisters to love her.

“Yeah.” Zuko’s voice cracks. “Yeah. What Mai said. I don’t--” he looks at Sokka, “I don’t feel guilty the same way I used to, but… I think there will always be nights where I toss and turn and wonder if maybe everyone was right and I really am just… broken and wrong because I don’t… because of who I love.”

Sokka and Katara mutter something under their breath. “I’m--” Sokka shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zuko says. He helps Azula into a sitting position. Azula mumbles something Ty Lee can’t hear, and Zuko brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “No,” he tells her. “You _don’t_ deserve this.” Azula doesn’t look like she believes him.

**i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies**

Katara bandages Azula’s hands, and Azula refuses to look her in the eye. Zuko and Sokka have left, and Azula isn’t sure she wants to think about what they could have possibly gone off alone for. Mai and Ty Lee are on the far side of the room, whispering to each other in hushed voices. And Azula _knows_ what she needs to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier. She thought it would be hardest talking to Zuko, but this? This is infinitely worse.

“Katara,” Azula finally speaks up. She thinks her name is a good place to start. Katara just raises an eyebrow instead of answering. “I--” the words stick in Azula’s throat. A voice that resembles her father’s tells her she has no reason to say anything at all to Katara, because she’s a peasant from the South Pole and isn’t worth a moment of Azula’s time. But Azula pushes that voice down, because she _knows_ she shouldn’t listen to it, despite how badly she still wants to. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Katara’s hands still. “What did you just say?”

“I’m sorry,” Azula repeats, finding it easier to say the second time around. “For, um…” Azula racks her brain, “for attacking you during the Agni Kai, and… everything else.” Azula can’t remember specifically what else she’d done to Katara, but she knows for certain the Agni Kai wasn’t the first time she’d met her, so there _must_ have been something. Azula wants to blame her jumbled memories on the fact that she just nearly died, but she knows that in reality, all the bad things she’s done to others have just blurred together until she can’t remember which face was on the receiving end of her wrath.

“Oh.” Katara finishes bandaging Azula up in silence. Once she’s finished, she says, “Thank you. I’m not… I won’t tell you I forgive you right now, because I’m not sure it would be sincere, but I think… I think I’ll be able to say it soon.”

Azula nods. It’s only a fair response. She’d rather Katara be honest with her than feed her a lie she thinks Azula wants to hear, like Zuko had when he’d told Azula she didn’t deserve this. He was just trying to be nice, but Azula knows the truth. She knows that this is a merciful price for all the harm she’s caused, both to her family and friends and to the world.

“I doubt this means anything coming from me,” Katara says carefully, “but I’m glad you’re still alive. And I know Zuko is too. It’s nice to see you healing.”

It has to be a lie, but Katara’s face looks sincere. There’s no reason for Katara to care about Azula being alive, or to care about the fact that she’s _healing_ , whatever that means. Azula thinks she probably _isn’t_ actually healing and she’s somehow managed to fool everyone into thinking she is. She just jumped in front of lightning with the hopes of dying from it, for Agni’s sake.

Still, she tells Katara, “Thank you,” because she knows that’s what she’s supposed to say, and Katara smiles at Azula like they’re friends.

**_i’ll tell you my sins_ **

Azula stays in the palace while she recovers, and Mai and Ty Lee agree to sit with her when she gets her bandages taken off for good. Azula is seated on the edge of a bed in the infirmary, while Mai and Ty Lee sit on chairs close enough to watch, but far enough that they aren’t in the way of the doctor. Ty Lee leans her head on Mai’s shoulder and kicks her legs back and forth as they watch the doctor carefully unwind the bandages on Azula’s arms and hands. Azula’s eyes are trained on the ceiling.

“All done,” the doctor says finally, depositing the bandages in the trash. “It’s going to scar, but that’s unavoidable with lightning wounds.” She rattles off some details about how Azula should care for the scars, especially now when they’re so new, and then she leaves Azula alone with Mai, Ty Lee, and the single guard standing by the door.

“I don’t want to look,” Azula confesses.

“You have to eventually,” Mai tells her, which earns her an elbow in the side from Ty Lee. Mai shrugs. “What? It’s true.” There’s no point in putting it off. And yet, Azula’s head is still tilted up towards the ceiling, her gaze refusing to drop to her hands.

“Does it look like Zuko’s?”

Mai shrugs again. “I’m a lesbian; you think I want to see Zuko shirtless?”

Azula’s frown quirks up into a smile, and then she’s laughing. And somehow, it must be contagious, because Ty Lee and Mai are suddenly laughing too like Mai’s quip was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, even though Mai thinks they’re probably laughing because it’s still so surreal Mai can just _say that_ without worrying about facing any repercussions.

“Okay,” Azula says once they’ve all contained their giggles. “Okay, I’m going to look now.” Still, she stares at the ceiling just a few moments longer before finally tilting her head downwards and letting herself look at her hands, which have jagged pink lines that _do_ look like what Mai has seen of Zuko’s scar running from her fingertips up to her elbows. Azula takes a deep, shaky, breath. She turns her hands over, examining every inch of skin that the lightning tarnished.

“I think they look kinda cool,” Ty Lee tells her. 

Mai nods in agreement. “You look badass.” It isn’t a lie, but Mai isn’t sure Azula really believes her. She knows Zuko didn’t believe her when she said the scar on his face didn’t make him ugly or unlovable. She knows all four of them will always have to look at themselves and see someone they were told was impossible to love, whether because of scars running across their body or the ones running through their minds.

But they’re going to get better - Mai knows they will. Things won’t ever be _perfect_ , but they have each other, and on Katara’s suggestion, they’ve agreed to look into talking to therapists to sort out the traumas of their childhood so maybe, just maybe, they can look in the mirror one day and see someone they’re proud of.

you can sharpen your knife

Zuko is going over reports from Omashu while Sokka drapes himself over him, reading over his shoulder. Zuko thinks maybe he could get used to this - maybe being Fire Lord wouldn’t be so bad if he could always have Sokka there with him. But he can’t ask that of Sokka, he can’t ask Sokka to relocate to the Fire Nation. Because Sokka still has so much to do at the South Pole and Zuko knows Sokka won’t want to be tied down to any one place even after his duties at the South Pole ease off.

Which is why Zuko pushes his scrolls back and shrugs Sokka off so he can look him in the eye. Sokka tilts his head, his eyebrows raising in a silent question.

“Azula and I are going to end the royal bloodline,” he tells Sokka, because that is clearly a given at this point and he thinks it best to start off with information they both pretty much already knew. He hasn’t actually spoken about this with Azula, but she already told him that she had been counting on him for an heir and Zuko had been counting on Azula for an heir, and there’s really no reason for one of them to force themselves into a loveless marriage. “Which means there won’t be anyone to take my place.”

Sokka nods, his face taking on an unusually serious expression. “Have you told your advisors this?”

Zuko shakes his head. “No.” They won’t take it well, and honestly, Zuko was planning on just… _not_ telling them until absolutely necessary. “Mostly because I think… I think we need to dissolve the monarchy, so it won’t matter if Azula and I have kids either way. It’s going to take a long time - years, probably - but it needs to be done. For… a lot of good reasons, but also because I want to be selfish.” Zuko reaches over and takes Sokka’s hands in his. “I want _you_.”

Sokka breaks out into a smile. He raises one of Zuko’s hands to his mouth and presses a soft kiss to his knuckles. Then, he leans forward and presses a kiss to Zuko’s lips. “Whatever you need,” he whispers against Zuko’s mouth, “I will help you with. I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll tear the monarchy down with my own hands if I have to.” He pulls back and cups Zuko’s cheek. “And after it’s all over, I’ll take you home to the South Pole and we can have the rest of our lives to live out the childhood we never got.”

It sounds an awful lot like a proposal, and Zuko really hopes it is because he _wants_ that. He wants to spend the rest of his life with Sokka and it scares him how sure he is of that, but he _is_. They still have so much work to do - Zuko is going to find a therapist and he’s going to keep working to restore his nation’s honor even while he works to dismantle the monarchy and he’s going to learn to look at himself in a way that doesn’t fill his mind with the hatred his father instilled in him and maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll find out what happened to his mother along the way. But he knows that through all that, he will still have Sokka.

Zuko leans in, but a soft knock on his door interrupts him before his lips can reach Sokka’s mouth. He sighs and pulls back. “Yes?”

“It’s your favorite sister!” Azula calls in a sing-song voice.

“You’re my only sister,” Zuko calls back at the same time Sokka says, “Come in!”

The door swings open and Azula walks in with one hand over her eyes. “Are you two decent?”

Zuko doesn’t respond because he’s too busy staring at Azula’s hand and arm. Her sleeves barely drop past her shoulder, so Zuko can clearly see the scars running up to her elbow and how they look almost identical to the markings on his chest. Zuko hears Sokka respond, and Azula lowers her hand, but Zuko is still just looking at her, his mouth completely dry.

“What?” She spits at him.

“...We match.”

Azula just stares at Zuko blankly until he tugs down the collar of his robe just enough to show the spiky edges of the scar Azula gave him in the Agni Kai that feels like a lifetime ago. Understanding passes through Azula’s eyes, and she nods solemnly. She crosses the room and sits down across from Zuko and Sokka.

“I can leave, if you want,” Sokka offers.

“No,” Azula tells him. “I just have a quick question.” She takes a deep breath, and she looks down at the table instead of at Zuko when she quietly asks, “When are you going to send me back?”

Truthfully, Zuko hasn’t really thought about it. He’s gotten so used to Azula being back in the palace that he hadn’t even considered sending her back to the hospital. And really, he thinks she might do better somewhere she can see her friends regularly and maybe even make some new ones, which is why he glances over at Sokka. Sokka smiles and nods and squeezes Zuko’s hand.

Zuko looks back to his sister. “How do you feel about helping me take down the monarchy?”

Azula looks up, confused at first, and then she smirks. “What’s in it for me?” She asks, but her voice lacks the malicious fire that used to emphasize each of her words.

Which is why Zuko matches her playful tone and tells her, “I won’t force you to marry anyone.” Because isn’t that all either of them ever wanted - to not be forced to marry just to make an heir and carry on the bloodline that is better off vanishing forever?

“Deal.”

_offer me that deathless death_

_good god, let me give you my life_

Mai’s face lights up exactly as Ty Lee knew it would when she holds out the bouquet of flowers. Mai declines to take the flowers from Ty Lee’s hands and instead surges forward, pulling Ty Lee into a hug, but positioning her body in a way that the flowers don’t get crushed. “You’re the best girlfriend ever,” Mai whispers, and Ty Lee could melt into a puddle of goo just at hearing Mai call Ty Lee her _girlfriend_.

Ty Lee giggles and pulls back just enough to press a kiss to Mai’s cheek. Mai steps away and takes the flowers from Ty Lee, burying her nose in them and taking a deep breath in. “What’s the occasion?”

“Azula is staying in the palace, Zuko has decided to disband the monarchy, we’re finally starting to work through the hot messes of our childhoods…” Ty Lee shrugs. “I figure that’s reason enough for a little celebration. And _also_ …” Ty Lee looks at the ground. “Today’s the four year anniversary of, uh…” she lets her voice trail off, but one glance up at Mai’s face lets Ty Lee know she remembers. “I figured you could use a little pick-me-up.”

“Right…” Mai sighs. “You probably should’ve gotten a bouquet for Zuko too - he deserves it.”

Ty Lee cracks a smile, despite the somber mood she created by not-so-subtly bringing up the anniversary of the Agni Kai and Zuko’s scar. “I brought Sokka with me and he got some flowers for Zuko and Azula both.”

Mai purses her lips. She pulls one flower from the bunch and hands it to Ty Lee. “You were there too, and I never really thanked you for letting me hold onto you.”

Ty Lee accepts the flower, and spins the stem between her fingers. “I should thank you too,” she admits. “I think we both needed each other in that moment.” And before Ty Lee can stop herself, she adds, “And we still both need each other now.”

“Yeah,” Mai agrees. She sets the flowers down and pulls Ty Lee into her arms. She drops a kiss on the top of Ty Lee’s head, and Ty Lee lets herself be held, breathing in the scent of Mai and enjoying the quiet surrounding them.

Ty Lee doesn’t know how long they stay like that before she speaks up. “Mai?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’m going to love you forever.”

They’re a little young to make such a big promise, but Ty Lee knows it to be true deep in her bones, and Mai’s aura glows bright pink, so maybe Mai can feel it too. Maybe they can be allowed to hold onto each other for the rest of their lives. And some days, it will probably feel like they’re clinging desperately, holding on for dear life, because all they can hear is the screaming voices of a thousand people telling them their love is wrong. But most days, Ty Lee thinks, they will be able to simply hold each other gently, fingers tracing out constellations on each other’s bodies, and promising to love each other forever.

“I think I’m going to love you forever too,” Mai whispers.

And all Ty Lee can do is squeeze her eyes shut and thank Agni that this life is her reality and the tortured screams of the kids who were taught they could never be happy are just fading demons in her mind.

**Author's Note:**

> i truly do not know if this piece of coherent or not. i went feral and woke up with this written. so if this is 25k words of absolute gibberish, i do apologize.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](https://zukkaclawthorne.tumblr.com/) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/H0LL0WKAIDAM) if you want to yell about zukka, mailee, atla, or anything else really
> 
> if you enjoyed this, feel free to leave kudos and/or a comment!
> 
> [heatbending inspiration](https://a-spooky-leprechaun.tumblr.com/post/631666758839943168/temperature-bending)  
> 


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